Did Toriyama limit himself as he strengthened the characters?

[Rukawa11]

Hiya,

First off, this thread doesn't include DBGT and Super.

Many would argue the best parts of the franchise are the original DragonBall series along with the Vegeta and Nappa arc. While I disagree about DBZ being any less awesome afterwards, I do believe the overall universe became significantly smaller (despite the introduction of outer space and alternate timelines) the stronger the characters became. In DB, there seemed to be infinite possibilities of new foes appearing and overpowering Goku (think Tao Pai Pai appearing out of nowhere and beating the crap out of him. Not to mention Tenshinhan and Piccolo Daimao).

Also, (and One Piece fans would probably brag about this not happening in their beloved show), Toriyama failed to maintain the relevance of characters like Kuririn, Yamucha, and Tenshinhan - all three being instrumental in making the original DB what it is. It later got to a point where the stronger characters are automatically more important than the weaker ones, until this finally culminated in the most disastrous period of the franchise: the latter part of Majin Buu arc, where no one matters except Goku, Vegeta and their sons.

[Gog]

No. The idea that he limited himself by allowing his characters to grow stronger? Is ridiculous.

Toriyama limited himself by having done no fore planning, there was the fact that he was getting burned out, but 'heh, heh' that didn't impact the quality at all.

[DanielSSJ]

Absolutely. Generally speaking, it's narratively better for characters to have limitations to work around.

Even by the Red Ribbon Arc, Goku was already in danger of becoming too powerful. Here he was, with superhuman strength, with the ability to travel almost anywhere at high speeds with no limitations (Kinto Un), and the ability to find whatever it is he's questing for (the Dragon Balls) without actually having to look for them. There's a reason why Toriyama found a way to temporarily get rid of the Kinto Un at the start, and broke or otherwise rendered the Dragon Radar unable to locate Dragon Balls twice in the arc. There's also a reason why an actual Dragon Hunt was never the focus of another arc after this one. (Freeza arc was more about the Dragon Balls changing hands.)

At a certain point, the only way to really challenge your protagonist is to pit him against someone with the same or similar power. That's actually one of the main strengths of the more modern shounen series like One Piece have over Dragon Ball, where the strength progression is more subtle, the abilities are more varied, and while the protagonists are generally stronger, smarter, more skilled, or otherwise more competent than the average mook, they're still heavily outmatched by a lot of the preestablished powers in the world, and their abilities aren't so useful that they can only be bested in direct combat. They can still be challenged in different ways.

[TheMikado]

^ agree with the above. You can't introduce "absolute" characters I.e. "Strongest in the universe" have your character topple that challenge easily and then continue a long series. If you think back to Saturday morning cartoons, the good guys almost never fought and defeated the main bad guy directly. Defeating the ultimate challenge meant making another challenge that wasn't present before. That's difficult to explain narrative wise on where that threat suddenly came from. Toriyama definitely worked around it in various ways but it wasn't exactly clean or smooth.

[ABED]

^ agree with the above. You can't introduce "absolute" characters I.e. "Strongest in the universe" have your character topple that challenge easily and then continue a long series. If you think back to Saturday morning cartoons, the good guys almost never fought and defeated the main bad guy directly. Defeating the ultimate challenge meant making another challenge that wasn't present before. That's difficult to explain narrative wise on where that threat suddenly came from. Toriyama definitely worked around it in various ways but it wasn't exactly clean or smooth.

Difficult, but not impossible.

[ekrolo2]

Honestly, the DB portion majoritively revolves around Goku. Krillin doesn't do much at all except be a decent opponent and die, Tien does admittedly go through a good arc but Yamcha was always a clown who's relevance was minor. The one guy besides Goku who manages to have a pretty good run for a large chunk of the earlier stuff is Roshi in the first two tournaments then in the Piccolo Daimao arc.

If anything, the Saiyan and Namek arcs give Krillin way more to do than anything in DB as far as I'm concerned. I'd also say the Z stuff, while never utilizing all of the cast well, always had at least a handful of people who were fairly important to progressing the story, many times more than Goku himself.

The Saiyan arc has Piccolo, Krillin and Gohan, Namek has Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin, the Android arc has Future Trunks, Vegeta, Gohan and to a somewhat diminished degree Krillin still then the Boo arc has Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, Trunks and to a lesser extent, Piccolo. This is all not counting Goku of course,

I would also say that conceptually Toriyama came up with several good ideas for stronger opponents after Freeza, hence why I don't think Goku beating "the strongest guy in the universe!" automatically kills any potential for more stories afterward. 19 and 20 had the whole absorption of ki thing to justify any power increase, Cell is a mishmash of every strong fighter at the time and Majin Boo is the archetypical ancient, powerful evil sealed for millennia then let loose. How many of these succeeded, if at all, is a whole topic of its own but conceptually most of the after Freeza bad guys are pretty good.

[Ki Breaker]

He escaped it brilliantly with bringing all of this power increasing and "big threats" being of jackshit importance when the real universe scale comes into play..
He even in our universe there is a god who goku can't even touch, and we know nothing about other universes whatsoever..
All we know there could be one where new born babies are as strong as ssb

[sintzu]

So far, yes.

Buu, Super&GT have been completely focused on the Saiyans with GT and Super going even beyond that by just focusing on Goku and Vegeta.

I think the reason for that is because there's little differences between each character outside of their personality, In Naruto and One Piece for example each character has something exclusive to them that they bring to the fight that others can't.

As long as Goku and Vegeta can kick and punch then there's no reason to bring anyone else in cause their strength faaaaaaaaar surpases everyone else'.

[ABED]

He escaped it brilliantly with bringing all of this power increasing and "big threats" being of jackshit importance when the real universe scale comes into play..
He even in our universe there is a god who goku can't even touch, and we know nothing about other universes whatsoever..
All we know there could be one where new born babies are as strong as ssb

Or there could be a universe without shrimp.

[nickzambuto]

He escaped it brilliantly with bringing all of this power increasing and "big threats" being of jackshit importance when the real universe scale comes into play..
He even in our universe there is a god who goku can't even touch, and we know nothing about other universes whatsoever..
All we know there could be one where new born babies are as strong as ssb

Or there could be a universe without shrimp.

There could be a universe where Chiaotzu has two hairs instead of one.

[Lord Beerus]

Hell yes. The Saiyan arc was the beginning of the end for a good chunk of the original cast and the Namek arc was the nail in the coffin for anyone that was not an alien. There was really no need for the battle powers to bloat as badly as they did once Freeza started fighting. There was still so much more that Earth's natural born talent could have provided to make the plot more intriguing, instead of just waiting for one of the aliens or mystical creatures to transform again.

until this finally culminated in the most disastrous period of the franchise: the latter part of Majin Buu arc, where no one matters except Goku, Vegeta and their sons.

I'd say the most important in that arc in Mr Satan. His friendship with Majin Boo was immensely pivotal. Seriously, if Mr Satan and Majin Boo don't become friends, everyone dies in that arc.

[Rukawa11]

You can't introduce "absolute" characters I.e. "Strongest in the universe" have your character topple that challenge easily and then continue a long series.

I believe this all comes down to Toriyama not planning too far ahead and not expecting the franchise to last as long as it did. Instead of two major story arcs after Frieza's defeat in Namek, I really think some of the earlier parts had much greater potential. Perhaps one or two more arcs should've been thrown in the five-year gap between the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and Raditz's arrival and/ or between the Saiyan arc and the Namek arc. I realize the death of the Z warriors at Nappa's hands forced Gohan and the others to go search for the Namekian dragonballs, making it impossible for anything to happen in between. But still, I think it cost the series a lot of things to have the Namek arc directly follow the Saiyan arc:

- Yamucha and Tenshinhan spend so much time on the sidelines and their role in the story comes to an end. Even their training under Kaio-sama/ King Kai was pointless seeing as how the only thing they had to show for it was defeating an already beaten Ginyu Force (filler?).

- Goku's Kaioken is hardly seen after his fight with Vegeta on earth. He doesn't need to use it against the Ginyu Force (except powering up against Ginyu himself) and then (going to the opposite extreme) his Kaioken is useless against Frieza. This being one of the most awesome techniques in DBZ, it's a darn shame that it wasn't used more often (they partially made up for that by having Goku use it a lot in movies 2-6).

- Many characters don't see each other for far too long. Can you imagine Goku's meeting with Future Trunks was the first time Tenshinhan and Yamucha had seen him since the 3rd Tenkaichi Budokai seven years before?

At a certain point, the only way to really challenge your protagonist is to pit him against someone with the same or similar power. That's actually one of the main strengths of the more modern shounen series like One Piece have over Dragon Ball, where the strength progression is more subtle, the abilities are more varied, and while the protagonists are generally stronger, smarter, more skilled, or otherwise more competent than the average mook, they're still heavily outmatched by a lot of the preestablished powers in the world, and their abilities aren't so useful that they can only be bested in direct combat. They can still be challenged in different ways.

Dragonball had the potential to become like that if things had turned out differently after the Piccolo Daimao arc. Imo, Goku shouldn't have surpassed Muten Roshi so soon (even having the two of them evenly matched in the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai was awfully rushed).

Hell yes. The Saiyan arc was the beginning of the end for a good chunk of the original cast and the Namek arc was the nail in the coffin for anyone that was not an alien. There was really no need for the battle powers to bloat as badly as they did once Freeza started fighting. There was still so much more that Earth's natural born talent could have provided to make the plot more intriguing, instead of just waiting for one of the aliens or mystical creatures to transform again.

Agreed. This might've been achieved if Toriyama hadn't strayed too far from the original Dragonball, where the fighting styles were more variant, and there were a lot more techniques as opposed to DBZ's almost static hand-to-hand/ ki blast fights. I also regret Goku's Zanzouken/ Afterimage technique fading away in DBZ. in DB, it had nearly become his signature move (like Naruto's Kagebunshin no Jutsu).

[DanielSSJ]

Dragonball had the potential to become like that if things had turned out differently after the Piccolo Daimao arc. Imo, Goku shouldn't have surpassed Muten Roshi so soon (even having the two of them evenly matched in the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai was awfully rushed).

To be fair, it sounds like Toriyama didn't intend for Dragon Ball to go on as long as it did.

[Rukawa11]

Honestly, the DB portion majoritively revolves around Goku. Krillin doesn't do much at all except be a decent opponent and die, Tien does admittedly go through a good arc but Yamcha was always a clown who's relevance was minor. The one guy besides Goku who manages to have a pretty good run for a large chunk of the earlier stuff is Roshi in the first two tournaments then in the Piccolo Daimao arc.

If anything, the Saiyan and Namek arcs give Krillin way more to do than anything in DB as far as I'm concerned.

You've got a point where Kuririn is concerned. It's just that he was much more unique in DB that his presence felt more significant than DBZ, where 90% of his quirkiness was gone. I wouldn't say Yamucha was always a clown; he became one when he fought Kami disguised as a human (I believe Shin was his name). Since this was near the end of DB, he was about as important as Kuririn throughout.

I would also say that conceptually Toriyama came up with several good ideas for stronger opponents after Freeza, hence why I don't think Goku beating "the strongest guy in the universe!" automatically kills any potential for more stories afterward. 19 and 20 had the whole absorption of ki thing to justify any power increase, Cell is a mishmash of every strong fighter at the time and Majin Boo is the archetypical ancient, powerful evil sealed for millennia then let loose. How many of these succeeded, if at all, is a whole topic of its own but conceptually most of the after Freeza bad guys are pretty good.

Yes, but that could only work so many times, whereas if he hadn't overpowered Goku so early on in DBZ, we could've had any number of foes. The way I see it, it would've been great to have one strong opponent for Goku to fight between Tao Pai Pai and Tenshinhan, another one between Piccolo Daimao and Piccolo Jr, and a third after Piccolo Jr. and before Raditz (Something like the first Garlic Jr. movie minus the abduction of Gohan). As for DBZ, I think an opponent after Vegeta and before the Namek arc would've been nice.

On a side note, when DB Super was first announced, my first thought was that it had picked the lousiest place to continue the series from. It may've been unavoidable if they wanted to introduce levels beyond ssj3, but the commercial aspect aside, I think the five-year gap between Piccolo Jr. and Raditz had the most potential for another long series. A sequel to DB and a prequel to DBZ!

[ekrolo2]

You've got a point where Kuririn is concerned. It's just that he was much more unique in DB that his presence felt more significant than DBZ, where 90% of his quirkiness was gone. I wouldn't say Yamucha was always a clown; he became one when he fought Kami disguised as a human (I believe Shin was his name). Since this was near the end of DB, he was about as important as Kuririn throughout.

Nah Yamcha was always a clown, he was always used for either comedy or to show how tough an opponent is and usually it was both. He doesn't do anything of much value in the RRA arc, the 22nd Budokai, he just meanders around in the Daimao arc then gets his ass kicked by Shen so Piccolo can look cool when he kicks Shen's ass. He was only ever really important in the Hunt for the Dragon Balls arc, much like Puar, Oolong and even Bulma for a good long time.

Yes, but that could only work so many times, whereas if he hadn't overpowered Goku so early on in DBZ, we could've had any number of foes. The way I see it, it would've been great to have one strong opponent for Goku to fight between Tao Pai Pai and Tenshinhan, another one between Piccolo Daimao and Piccolo Jr, and a third after Piccolo Jr. and before Raditz (Something like the first Garlic Jr. movie minus the abduction of Gohan). As for DBZ, I think an opponent after Vegeta and before the Namek arc would've been nice.

Yeah, Namek definitely bloats a lot of the powers. There's a fairly good escallation up until then with Raditz being at 1,200 then Vegeta slightly over 10 times that and everyone else, Goku included, fall somewhere in-between that by the end of the Saiyan arc. Then you've got Freeza a few times stronger than Oozaru Vegeta which is... a big leap but not too aggregious, its when Freeza goes from 530k to 120 million where things just break.

[Abra kadabra]

Vegito being permanent put AT in a corner and some people can't see why that would be a problem smh. The retcon was a brilliant idea.

[Rukawa11]

Nah Yamcha was always a clown, he was always used for either comedy or to show how tough an opponent is and usually it was both. He doesn't do anything of much value in the RRA arc, the 22nd Budokai, he just meanders around in the Daimao arc then gets his ass kicked by Shen so Piccolo can look cool when he kicks Shen's ass. He was only ever really important in the Hunt for the Dragon Balls arc, much like Puar, Oolong and even Bulma for a good long time.

I think he deserved a standing ovation when he was carried off the ring after Tenshinhan broke his leg, though. That his best ever fight and I daresay he put in some of the sweetest moves in the entire series.

Yeah, Namek definitely bloats a lot of the powers. There's a fairly good escallation up until then with Raditz being at 1,200 then Vegeta slightly over 10 times that and everyone else, Goku included, fall somewhere in-between that by the end of the Saiyan arc. Then you've got Freeza a few times stronger than Oozaru Vegeta which is... a big leap but not too aggregious, its when Freeza goes from 530k to 120 million where things just break.

I've yet to confirm the following information, but Toriyama may have intended for DB/Z to end with planet namek blowing up and Goku dying. If the decision to continue the series was made shortly before reaching that point, then there was little he could do to set things right. Make no mistake, though, the appearance of Future Trunks, the whole mystery about there being more androids than Trunks' timeline, and Cell appearing and messing up the events of history even more were a masterstroke. It's really the Majin Boo arc that annoys me. If it didn't feature that rematch between Goku and Vegeta, the series would've suffered its first decline.

[ekrolo2]

Make no mistake, though, the appearance of Future Trunks, the whole mystery about there being more androids than Trunks' timeline, and Cell appearing and messing up the events of history even more were a masterstroke. It's really the Majin Boo arc that annoys me. If it didn't feature that rematch between Goku and Vegeta, the series would've suffered its first decline.

I hate almost everything from the Android arc that you mention. Future Trunks' very existence is a horrid contrivance that doesn't work as its own universe once you remember stuff like the dead being allowed to keep their bodies and being able to contact New Namek with King Kai's help, not to mention the moronic time travel rules that forefathers the Black arc's even more egregious shortcomings. There wasn't any mystery period to the Androids, Future Trunks just blatantly says everything about the bad guy like a walking Wikipedia and while Cell starts out good, the closer he reaches perfection, the more generic he becomes. The only reason I agree with people who say Cell should've been the end is because the series overall drops massively in quality after Namek and doesn't recover from it.

[ABED]

Make no mistake, though, the appearance of Future Trunks, the whole mystery about there being more androids than Trunks' timeline, and Cell appearing and messing up the events of history even more were a masterstroke. It's really the Majin Boo arc that annoys me. If it didn't feature that rematch between Goku and Vegeta, the series would've suffered its first decline.

I hate almost everything from the Android arc that you mention. Future Trunks' very existence is a horrid contrivance that doesn't work as its own universe once you remember stuff like the dead being allowed to keep their bodies and being able to contact New Namek with King Kai's help, not to mention the moronic time travel rules that forefathers the Black arc's even more egregious shortcomings. There wasn't any mystery period to the Androids, Future Trunks just blatantly says everything about the bad guy like a walking Wikipedia and while Cell starts out good, the closer he reaches perfection, the more generic he becomes. The only reason I agree with people who say Cell should've been the end is because the series overall drops massively in quality after Namek and doesn't recover from it.

There was a mystery for the first third of the Cell arc, and no Trunks doesn't say everything about the bad guy, he doesn't know why things are so drastically different from his timeline.
When could they contact New Namek?

[ekrolo2]

There was a mystery for the first third of the Cell arc, and no Trunks doesn't say everything about the bad guy, he doesn't know why things are so drastically different from his timeline.
When could they contact New Namek?

There's no mystery anywhere, Trunks tells them everything about Gero, who he is, what he is, when he'll attack and all of that, the only "mystery" comes from the fact Toriyama hastily retcons 17 and 18 into being the Androids when it was originally 19 and 20 as seen by Trunks' dialogue to Goku. There's also no mystery with Cell since he tells Piccolo his whole backstory almost immediately.

They can use King Kai to contact New Namek and revive themselves. Yeah, Goku can't come back and Vegeta's in Hell for sure but what's Piccolo doing in the afterlife, twiddling his thumbs? Surely if he got revived and traind with Gohan for a good long time then fused with Kami they could beat the weaker 17 and 18 sooner rather than later? That's not even taking into account the ROSAT.