Does Dragon Ball work best when it’s lighthearted or dark?

[WittyUsername]

It’s probably no secret that at its core, Dragon Ball is a fairly lighthearted series. This was especially true in its early days, where it was a full blown gag manga. With that being said, the series did progressively get darker, which resulted in things such as villains committing mass genocide, and alternate futures where the good guys are almost all wiped out. Of course, the series eventually regained some of its early silliness by the time the Boo saga came around, but as a whole, the “Z” portion of the series is probably most remembered for its darker moments.

The question is, what works best for the series? The silly cartooniness of the early parts of the manga and other installments like BoG, or the darker stories such as the Freeza and Cell arcs, the TV specials, and the Future Trunks arc in Super?

[ABED]

It all depends on the execution.

[Kinokima]

Both I think the humor makes you care about the characters when the more dramatic moments occur.

[ABED]

Both I think the humor makes you care about the characters when the more dramatic moments occur.

That's why I like when stories oscillate in tone.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

Tone balancing is good. I love the Majin Boo arc for doing it so well. But, we have seen that many times at this point. I had suggested in some other thread that a future story with a singular tone would be great. As in, go full absurd, slapstick comedic route if it is going to be a lighthearted story or go full serious and never break that in favor of jokes. The latter has been kind of, sort of done with the Trunks SP, but not serious enough for me and my sick brain. Rurouni Kenshin styled OVA with the right staff is what I'm thinking about. That'd be great to see if it works or not.

Toriyama can never nail a uniformly serious story the way I see it. It is just not his thing and I don't have a problem with it. That is where you let the anime staff have some fun. But, yeah to answer the topic question it works for the most part when it is balanced. It can change that if tries to and develop a new identity, but that's just wishful thinking and kind of what I want and not something Toriyama and the current staff are interested in. They're happy doing whatever they are doing in the Dragon Ball way. Although, it is way more lighthearted nowadays with poor gags most of the time.

[SmugStick]

Lighthearted, 100%. Anybody who says otherwise is lying.
The thing is, Toriyama is a gag manga artist at his core. This is why I think the first tournament arc and the boo saga are his best. He’s got a good balance of dark and light there, but it never reaches the depths of say, the Cell or Piccolo arcs. They are both super funny in my opinion. Bacterian, the singing, Candy Vegetto, and Gotenks, for example.

[Asura]

I'd say it works best when it's something like 70% dark, 30% lighthearted.

When I say dark though I think of serious situations like Goku vs Freeza or the Cell Games. I wouldn't want another Future Trunks arc, that's simply too dark for Dragon Ball.

[sintzu]

It's best when it's a mix of both like during the Buu arc. If I had to pick one or the other then I'll go with serious as that's what most of Z is which is my favorite part of the franchise.

Lighthearted, 100%. Anybody who says otherwise is lying.

There's no such thing as a truth or lie opinion, it's all subjective to one's taste in things.

[Cipher]

It works best for me when it's both at the same time, with the absurd and the horrific playing into one another to present a sense of a situation running away from the characters at breakneck speed.

This is why the Boo arc is my favorite, and in Dragon Ball I feel Toriyama's constructed a world in which he can pull those kinds of switches off. Everything that happens in that storyline is ridiculous, but that doesn't mean the characters treat their circumstances with anything less than sincere reactions, and as a reader/viewer you can both enjoy the off-beat humor and get pulled along by the tension. And the fact that things are so ridiculous just highlights how much the situation is getting the best of the characters. (So, for example, Piccolo is as shocked and resigned over the fact that everyone has to pin their hopes on a character like Gotenks as the audience might be. The fact that he's forced to watch two idiots like Gotenks and Boo decide the fate of the universe is sublime; and the funnier and more bizarre things get there, the more the tension is upped at the same time, because we have straightmen like Piccolo, the Kaioshin, etc., surrounding the weirdness to remind us of the stakes.)

There was another great opportunity to accomplish that tone with Super's Universal Survival arc, pulling all these weird and somewhat absurd characters together for a situation with impossibly high stakes, but ... uh, good luck with the manga there, I guess?

That said, my second favorite arc is proooooobably the Namek arc (in the manga), and that's largely because of it leaning hard into the drama, but I don't feel that's a trick the series can pull off more than once. It works because it's so different from, and in many ways a natural climax to, a lot of the material that's come before.

[Michsi]

A good balance between both is what I'd say.

People need to remember that DB's popularity spiked once it started to take itself more seriously as as action story and became a little darker, and then reached the peak of that popularity during one of it's most serious arcs: the Freeza arc!

[ABED]

A good balance between both is what I'd say.

People need to remember that DB's popularity spiked once it started to take itself more seriously as as action story and became a little darker, and then reached the peak of that popularity during one of it's most serious arcs: the Freeza arc!

And people need to remember that it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Just taking itself serious, which is still a pretty silly statement considering are characters like the Ginyu Force, wasn't what made it start to take off. Part of the appeal of the series is its whimsical nature, even in the more serious/earnest.

Contrast works great when it's done well. One of my favorite arcs is the Piccolo Daimao arc, but I don't want every arc to feel like that. It works so well because of what came before and what came after.

[ekrolo2]

The darker material usually appeals to me more but I can enjoy the stuff on the other side of the spectrum. It's messy stuff such as the Boo arc that half-assedly oscillates between the two that doesn't really work for me.

[ABED]

While tone is important, it's just one element of telling a story and is as dependent on execution as anything else. Darkness or seriousness won't automatically make a story better any more than adding a few jokes will.

[ekrolo2]

I never said one tone or the other inherently makes something better, but usually, the darker stuff is what appeals to me more. I would also definitely count the Boo arc as a fuck up in terms of execution when you've got Goten and Trunks wanting revenge on Boo then forgetting about the fact he murdered everyone they care about so Toriyama can have him and Boo give Piccolo a stomach ulcer with their wacky hijinks.

[ABED]

That was a general statement as a lot of film criticism these days seems to forget that fact.

[ekrolo2]

I do agree the Internet's kind of broken down the concept of nuance and turned a lot of discussion into "X isn't X, therefore, it is bad by default!". I've probably been guilty of this myself

[Cipher]

I disagree that Gotenks is any kind of misstep in execution, because it's established from his first appearance that, independent of whatever's going on with Goten and Trunks, Gotenks is going to be a little asshole.

The stakes are nearly constantly rising in the Boo arc, but increasingly insane things are happening at the same time.

[ekrolo2]

Gotenks being completely divorced from what Goten and Trunks feel about Boo, which is nothing good, is precisely the problem. Since he's the two kids even more exaggerated, it's really odd how he flat out doesn't care at all even when he and Piccolo jump out the portal and find Boo munching on his last remaining family & friends.

[Cipher]

Gotenks being completely divorced from what Goten and Trunks feel about Boo, which is nothing good, is precisely the problem. Since he's the two kids even more exaggerated, it's really odd how he flat out doesn't care at all even when he and Piccolo jump out the portal and find Boo munching on his last remaining family & friends.

Yeah, but the aftermath is funny, so it's fine.

[ekrolo2]

Gotenks being completely divorced from what Goten and Trunks feel about Boo, which is nothing good, is precisely the problem. Since he's the two kids even more exaggerated, it's really odd how he flat out doesn't care at all even when he and Piccolo jump out the portal and find Boo munching on his last remaining family & friends.

Yeah, but the aftermath is funny, so it's fine.

I don't agree with that even when I find something funny which most of DB isn't for me, if anything, it increasingly irks me when a character acts like a moron when the circumstances probably don't warrant it just for a laugh.