Attacks have become same-y

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:22 pm

sintzu wrote:After BOG introduced Beerus and teased the universes at the end, t seemed like the sky was the limit for what could be done in future movies...Then RF was announced and most were like :wtf: After all the set up we got in BOG, Freeza was the best they could come up with ? It ended up being fun for what it was but nowhere near the ground breaking BOG. After waiting 3 years for the 20th movie, everyone thought we'd be in for something completely new to not only celebrate the franchise reaching the 20th movie but also make up for the near 4 year wait we had to sit through since RF and...it's just a Saiyan movie :yawn:.

On one hand modern DB has shown that it has some really good ideas but on the other it doesn't want to leave its safe saiyan/Freeza space which is holding everything back. In this day and age with all the anime to pick from, anime that has serious efforts and thought put into them, DB needs to really step up its game if it wants to remain relevant with its older fans as I think they'll just move on from it if it doesn't. The original DB story is a timeless classic that both young and old love but if DB continues down the road it's currently on then it'll simply be forgotton and dropped by people once they reach a certain age unlike the original where it managed to stand the test of time.
Here's the thing, though...
Super is popular. Really popular. Far as Toei is concerned, they're doing exactly what they should be, because it's making some really fat stacks of cash for them.

So, it's not going to change. Not unless the fandom has some kind of mass exodus.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by KBABZ » Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:31 pm

Listening to the podcast (I haven't watched any Super at all), it sounds like the problem with the ToP is that it has an interesting premise but no actual underlying story arc. For example, what if a team were cheating? What if there were a conspiracy that Zeno had no intention of holding up his end of the bargain? What if a character had an irrational hatred for Gohan and we had to find out why? What if you had to escape the arena via various tasks?

From what it sounds like, it feels like ToP is a team PUBG match in Dragon Ball, which is a fun idea, but then no effort is made to actually add a storyline to that concept, outside of a new form being introduced.
Robo4900 wrote:Red Ribbon: Goku is traveling the world collecting the Dragon Balls, but so is an army.
Fixed slightly. I think the world tour adventure aspect of Red Ribbon is very important, particularly when comparing it to the Pilaf arc.

---

Back on topic, I actually thought of this when watching the next batch of GT Review episodes. Goku's first fight with Baby Vegeta is poorly choreographed and the characters seem to only fire generic energy balls at each other. There's very little fight choreography or martial arts (beyond the wuxia ki blast thing) at all.

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by sintzu » Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:40 pm

Robo4900 wrote:Super is popular. Really popular. Far as Toei is concerned, they're doing exactly what they should be, because it's making some really fat stacks of cash for them. So, it's not going to change. Not unless the fandom has some kind of mass exodus.
Super's popularity and success heavily relies on its merchandise. A merchandise focused franchise limits the people it can bring in which is young kids. Kids grow out of these kinds of shows and if for whatever reason the kind of merchandise DB is pushing isn't popular anymore in a few years (card games for example), then the franchise will fall apart as it doesn't have a story to keep kids who grew up interested in it or bring in older people.

Now look at story focused franchises like the original DB, Naruto and most importantly, One Piece. Once Piece has been going on since the late 90's yet the people who watched it as kids are now watching it as adults with their kids and it's bringing in all kinds of new fans from every age demographic with 18 year olds leading the charts. That's the kind of thing modern DB should be focusing on, a story, not a trend.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:51 pm

sintzu wrote:Super's popularity and success heavily relies on its merchandise. A merchandise focused franchise limits the people it can bring in which is young kids. Kids grow out of these kinds of shows and if for whatever reason the kind of merchandise DB is pushing isn't popular anymore in a few years (card games for example), then the franchise will fall apart as it doesn't have a story to keep kids who grew up interested in it or bring in older people.

Now look at story focused franchises like the original DB, Naruto and most importantly, One Piece. Once Piece has been going on since the late 90's yet the people who watched it as kids are now watching it as adults with their kids and it's bringing in all kinds of new fans from every age demographic with 18 year olds leading the charts. That's the kind of thing modern DB should be focusing on, a story, not a trend.
Sure. But the execs won't see it like that; all they see is the big dollar signs that appear when they follow the trend.
KBABZ wrote:Listening to the podcast (I haven't watched any Super at all), it sounds like the problem with the ToP is that it has an interesting premise but no actual underlying story arc. For example, what if a team were cheating? What if there were a conspiracy that Zeno had no intention of holding up his end of the bargain? What if a character had an irrational hatred for Gohan and we had to find out why? What if you had to escape the arena via various tasks?

From what it sounds like, it feels like ToP is a team PUBG match in Dragon Ball, which is a fun idea, but then no effort is made to actually add a storyline to that concept, outside of a new form being introduced.
A new form being introduced isn't how you execute on a premise. :lol:
But yeah, basically. Big battle royale, and yet there's no real story or anything, it's a collection of pretty decent fight scenes with no connective tissue or characterisation.
KBABZ wrote:Back on topic, I actually thought of this when watching the next batch of GT Review episodes. Goku's first fight with Baby Vegeta is poorly choreographed and the characters seem to only fire generic energy balls at each other. There's very little fight choreography or martial arts (beyond the wuxia ki blast thing) at all.
The fights in GT don't have the best choreography. Though the focus in GT was more on story and characterisation anyway, so while I think some of the fights drag a little(Particularly Goku vs Baby), I've never really seen that as an issue.

But yeah, they don't tend to have any real variety of techniques; walls of energy balls is the name of the game. Still, when they actually did have a real technique being used, it was generally pretty cool; like the tornado Goku move when they were fighting Princess Oto. That was pretty creative and fun.
And while I think it had showed up in movies prior, Dragon Fist was new to TV in GT, and that was a really cool and distinct move.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by LuckyCat » Thu Apr 12, 2018 6:04 pm

sintzu wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:Super is popular. Really popular. Far as Toei is concerned, they're doing exactly what they should be, because it's making some really fat stacks of cash for them. So, it's not going to change. Not unless the fandom has some kind of mass exodus.
Super's popularity and success heavily relies on its merchandise. A merchandise focused franchise limits the people it can bring in which is young kids. Kids grow out of these kinds of shows and if for whatever reason the kind of merchandise DB is pushing isn't popular anymore in a few years (card games for example), then the franchise will fall apart as it doesn't have a story to keep kids who grew up interested in it or bring in older people.
I think both Robo and sintzu are right here. At the end of the day, while Super can be popular or profitable; that doesn't necessarily mean it's good.

As to the original poster's point, I think it's true. One of the great things about the original manga is that it introduced new attacks, and those attacks were based in some part on an interesting and unexplored aspect of wuxia and/or martial arts. One of the really big problems Super had was that it would get so stuck in trying to give homages to the original material it would forget to make its own original material. It's like all the writers were scared to be creative like the writers in DBGT, so they went to the other extreme and wrote very safe "comfort zone" stories, with somewhat predictable outcomes.

I'm not saying that all homages are bad, and as a fan of Resurrection F, I can say homages are great in moderation. But they've got to push some daring new concepts like they did in Battle of Gods, because those help breathe new life into the Dragon World.

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Ryuji-Otogi » Fri Apr 13, 2018 3:44 pm

KBABZ wrote:I think the attacks started feeling a bit generic post-Frieza, where we stopped seeing any appreciable difference in battle speeds and attack power and had to be told when something was breaking the norm. There were exceptions like Final Flash but that's where it started for me.
LOL. I know, right. Bystanders will always be like "Omg! The speed! These guys are on a whole different level!". But as far as the audience can tell, there's been no discernible difference since at least the Freeza arc, if not before that. :lolno:

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Baggie_Saiyan » Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:31 pm

sintzu wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:Super is popular. Really popular. Far as Toei is concerned, they're doing exactly what they should be, because it's making some really fat stacks of cash for them. So, it's not going to change. Not unless the fandom has some kind of mass exodus.
Super's popularity and success heavily relies on its merchandise. A merchandise focused franchise limits the people it can bring in which is young kids. Kids grow out of these kinds of shows and if for whatever reason the kind of merchandise DB is pushing isn't popular anymore in a few years (card games for example), then the franchise will fall apart as it doesn't have a story to keep kids who grew up interested in it or bring in older people.

Now look at story focused franchises like the original DB, Naruto and most importantly, One Piece. Once Piece has been going on since the late 90's yet the people who watched it as kids are now watching it as adults with their kids and it's bringing in all kinds of new fans from every age demographic with 18 year olds leading the charts. That's the kind of thing modern DB should be focusing on, a story, not a trend.
I think you are leaving out some facts here, OP still relies on the same stuff as DB with merchandise still being a big thing for it, the only difference is OP still has an on going weekly Manga and even then DB has still managed to surpass it. Plenty of adults still also watch DB. What you are saying makes sense but modern DB is not like that it isn't like "card games", it isn't following a trend. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't story focused. If it were following trends then every Saiyan would have gotten SSGSS by now given the forms popularity, Goku wouldn't have gotten a new form 3 years later since his last etc. I also think you are jumping the gun by far bit my implying DBS won't stand the test of time.

Also there is misconception about what age group DBS merch is actually aiming for, it is ages 15+. Far from young kids.

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by sintzu » Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:42 pm

Baggie_Saiyan wrote:OP still relies on the same stuff as DB with merchandise still being a big thing for it, the only difference is OP still has an on going weekly Manga and even then DB has still managed to surpass it.

I think you are jumping the gun by implying DBS won't stand the test of time.
One Piece's main product is its manga, its story. DB lives and dies by the merchandise. If One Piece's merchandise starts to lose some numbers but the manga stays the same or goes higher than it's safe. If DB's merchandise goes down we'll have another Kai where they pull the plug on it.

It can't even stand the current time it's in let alone what will be offered 10 years from now. As a DB fan I'll most likely remember Super in a positive light but when I look at the whole package compared to other anime that's offered today (or in past years), it doesn't hold a candle to them, let alone what'll be offered in the future. In order to stand the test of time something needs to be a game changer, Super generally speaking most likely wouldn't have lasted a year had it not been named DB. Living off past glory doesn't really fit the bill for what people consider as standing the test of time.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Baggie_Saiyan » Fri Apr 13, 2018 6:05 pm

sintzu wrote:
Baggie_Saiyan wrote:OP still relies on the same stuff as DB with merchandise still being a big thing for it, the only difference is OP still has an on going weekly Manga and even then DB has still managed to surpass it.

I think you are jumping the gun by implying DBS won't stand the test of time.
One Piece's main product is its manga, its story. DB lives and dies by the merchandise. If One Piece's merchandise starts to lose some numbers but the manga stays the same or goes higher than it's safe. If DB's merchandise goes down we'll have another Kai where they pull the plug on it.

It can't even stand the current time it's in let alone what will be offered 10 years from now. As a DB fan I'll most likely remember Super in a positive light but when I look at the whole package compared to other anime that's offered today (or in past years), it doesn't hold a candle to them, let alone what'll be offered in the future. In order to stand the test of time something needs to be a game changer, Super generally speaking most likely wouldn't have lasted a year had it not been named DB. Living off past glory doesn't really fit the bill for what people consider as standing the test of time.
Well it is a sequel to DB, so...? It wouldn't exist without DB so this argument doesn't work at all. You cannot if but and maybe out of DBS' success. You literally said it yourself Kai failed and it had the DB name! So I do not know how you can draw to the "most likely wouldn't have lasted a year" conclusion.

Modern DB and OP are completely different, you can compare them they way you are. If OP manga ended and the anime continued does that mean all of sudden OP will have no story? C'mon now.

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by sintzu » Sat Apr 14, 2018 1:15 am

Baggie_Saiyan wrote:You literally said it yourself Kai failed and it had the DB name! So I do not know how you can draw to the "most likely wouldn't have lasted a year" conclusion.

If OP manga ended and the anime continued does that mean all of sudden OP will have no story? C'mon now.
The reason Super lasted while Kai didn't was because one moved merchandise while the other didn't, despite both being in the top 10 rated shows when they aired. My point with Super's quality was that if a new anime tried to make a name for itself and had the same issues Super did it wouldn't have lasted a year.

I brought up Kai to show that when something like DB doesn't have a manga it becomes judged by how much merchandise it moves, not the show's quality. If the one Piece manga ends then the story will take a back seat to selling merchandise as that's what will be keeping it going.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Hawk9211 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 1:35 am

Baggie_Saiyan wrote:
sintzu wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:Super is popular. Really popular. Far as Toei is concerned, they're doing exactly what they should be, because it's making some really fat stacks of cash for them. So, it's not going to change. Not unless the fandom has some kind of mass exodus.
Super's popularity and success heavily relies on its merchandise. A merchandise focused franchise limits the people it can bring in which is young kids. Kids grow out of these kinds of shows and if for whatever reason the kind of merchandise DB is pushing isn't popular anymore in a few years (card games for example), then the franchise will fall apart as it doesn't have a story to keep kids who grew up interested in it or bring in older people.

Now look at story focused franchises like the original DB, Naruto and most importantly, One Piece. Once Piece has been going on since the late 90's yet the people who watched it as kids are now watching it as adults with their kids and it's bringing in all kinds of new fans from every age demographic with 18 year olds leading the charts. That's the kind of thing modern DB should be focusing on, a story, not a trend.
I think you are leaving out some facts here, OP still relies on the same stuff as DB with merchandise still being a big thing for it, the only difference is OP still has an on going weekly Manga and even then DB has still managed to surpass it. Plenty of adults still also watch DB. What you are saying makes sense but modern DB is not like that it isn't like "card games", it isn't following a trend. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't story focused. If it were following trends then every Saiyan would have gotten SSGSS by now given the forms popularity, Goku wouldn't have gotten a new form 3 years later since his last etc. I also think you are jumping the gun by far bit my implying DBS won't stand the test of time.

Also there is misconception about what age group DBS merch is actually aiming for, it is ages 15+. Far from young kids.
DBS is aimed at 12 year olds,yeah right.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:58 pm

Hawk9211 wrote:DBS is aimed at 12 year olds,yeah right.
You're right. It's more like 5-year-olds. ;)
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Hawk9211 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:15 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Hawk9211 wrote:DBS is aimed at 12 year olds,yeah right.
You're right. It's more like 5-year-olds. ;)
I know you are joking.But,I was referring how people say that you should take a kid's show seriously even though it is marketed towards the older fans with all the fanservice and as you can see merchandies.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:47 pm

Hawk9211 wrote:But,I was referring how people say that you should take a kid's show seriously even though it is marketed towards the older fans with all the fanservice and as you can see merchandies.
Putting aside my joke, really, kids' shows should be taken seriously, is the thing. Batman: The Animated Series is a kids' show. Just because it's "For kids" doesn't mean it's excused if it completely fails to have any depth or level of intellect behind it; children deserve a lot better than crap like Teen Titans Go, the Ben 10 reboot, etc. Even if the idea that Super is "For kids" wasn't easily argued against with its blatant reliance on nostalgia, using the "Kids' show" defence for its poor writing is foolish.
Hawk9211 wrote:I know you are joking.
Half-joking...
One day, I may go into the details on precisely why Super irks me so much -- probably involving something about it taking the rotten corpse of my dearest nostalgic memories and beating me to death with them -- but people like Super, and I think it'd be pretty self-indulgent of me to assume anyone would care why some guy they've never met really hates this show they like, but, let's say this... In my view, the storytelling in Super is so weak, I'd say it'd be a stretch to say it's aimed at anyone above 12, in terms of the people it's not attempting to woo with its attempts at fanservice. And, I think that's sad. As I said above, the "It's a kids' show!" excuse is nonsense, yet many studios use that excuse to write crap, and say "It's just a kids' show, no one will care."
And then, someone comes up with a Steven Universe, a Batman: The Animated Series, an Adventure Time, or a Ben 10(The original one), and these just keep proving, time and time again, that while kids probably will tolerate and watch crap, if you want something that will really stick and resonate with people, it's gotta be good. Doesn't have to be a deep-dive introspection piece on the nature of human emotion told through the lens of a retelling of Pinnocchio, but if you put effort into storytelling, and write jokes that actually are clever, you'll do much more than just put something on to fill time on a kids' network.

So, to put it simply, "Kids' shows" should definitely be taken and criticised seriously, and anyone who uses the "It's just a kids' show" defence for Super's poor writing should really needs to re-examine why we're still talking about the original Dragon Ball story nearly 25 years after it originally concluded.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Hawk9211 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:54 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Hawk9211 wrote:But,I was referring how people say that you should take a kid's show seriously even though it is marketed towards the older fans with all the fanservice and as you can see merchandies.
Putting aside my joke, really, kids' shows should be taken seriously, is the thing. Batman: The Animated Series is a kids' show. Just because it's "For kids" doesn't mean it's excused if it completely fails to have any depth or level of intellect behind it; children deserve a lot better than crap like Teen Titans Go, the Ben 10 reboot, etc. Even if the idea that Super is "For kids" wasn't easily argued against with its blatant reliance on nostalgia, using the "Kids' show" defence for its poor writing is foolish.
Hawk9211 wrote:I know you are joking.
Half-joking...
One day, I may go into the details on precisely why Super irks me so much -- probably involving something about it taking the rotten corpse of my dearest nostalgic memories and beating me to death with them -- but people like Super, and I think it'd be pretty self-indulgent of me to assume anyone would care why some guy they've never met really hates this show they like, but, let's say this... In my view, the storytelling in Super is so weak, I'd say it'd be a stretch to say it's aimed at anyone above 12, in terms of the people it's not attempting to woo with its attempts at fanservice. And, I think that's sad. As I said above, the "It's a kids' show!" excuse is nonsense, yet many studios use that excuse to write crap, and say "It's just a kids' show, no one will care."
And then, someone comes up with a Steven Universe, a Batman: The Animated Series, an Adventure Time, or a Ben 10(The original one), and these just keep proving, time and time again, that while kids probably will tolerate and watch crap, if you want something that will really stick and resonate with people, it's gotta be good. Doesn't have to be a deep-dive introspection piece on the nature of human emotion told through the lens of a retelling of Pinnocchio, but if you put effort into storytelling, and write jokes that actually are clever, you'll do much more than just put something on to fill time on a kids' network.

So, to put it simply, "Kids' shows" should definitely be taken and criticised seriously.
I agree with that.shonen is for young boys and a lot of them are witten much better than super.You forgot the best american series .i.e.avatar last airbender.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Robo4900 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:56 pm

Hawk9211 wrote:I agree with that.shonen is for young boys and a lot of them are witten much better than super.You forgot the best american series .i.e.avatar last airbender.
Indeed. Unfortunately, I missed Avatar's original Nick run, and haven't had the chance to catch it since, so it slipped my mind while thinking of great shows of that kind. I'll have to remember to give that one a look next time I need a series to binge, though. :)
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Lightdasher » Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:13 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
sintzu wrote:Overall I think a lot of attacks have lost their weight in modern DB compared to the original manga.
I mean, I think one of my biggest complaints with modern DB(Well, I say modern DB... It's pretty much just Super... Heroes is just a kinda dumb arcade game, so... Yeah, it's just Super) is the fact that nothing has any weight anymore.
I don't think it's just Super. Super is definitely the biggest offender to me though, and it upsets me at least a bit in that regard. Vegeta bringing back the Final Flash for the first time was nice, but even then I thought it was unlike Vegeta because, before Super, he'd always have a new attack as his big finisher unless we count non-canon events (Galick Gun, the attack dubbed "Atomic Blast" in the games that was meant to finish Majin Buu, Final Flash, and even Final Shine Attack, are good examples). I didn't even watch Super that much, but it got annoying how much he'd use the attack, as though the writers wanted him to have his own Kamehameha.

However, and especially concerning the topic as a whole, I do believe that we can see this same issue in Z and GT. A ton of characters used the Kamehameha in Z, even if only once, and GT's big attacks were flashy (Revenge Death Ball comes to mind first, then Shocking Death Ball), but they're also pretty samey. Not to mention that, despite a series where the main character is supposed to be a martial artist, the physical attacks barely ever show special distinction. It bugged me when Goku attacked Jiren for the first time and Krillin acknowledged Goku and Jiren both as martial artists, when all Goku was doing was spamming his closed fists to the guy at the time. I haven't had any training with that sort of thing, but that's an attack even I can do (even if I can't make it look as cool)!
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Puaru » Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:52 pm

Robo4900 wrote: And then, someone comes up with a Steven Universe, a Batman: The Animated Series, an Adventure Time, or a Ben 10(The original one), and these just keep proving, time and time again, that while kids probably will tolerate and watch crap, if you want something that will really stick and resonate with people, it's gotta be good.
It would be nice if that was true, but I honestly dont think it is, especially not with kids. Remember, one of the single biggest cartoon crazes in history (speaking from a global perspective) was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And aside from the first few episodes, that show was honestly garbage. We all remember it as good, but going back and watching it now, it is painfully clear what a low-quality show it was. And yet, at the height of its popularity it was possibly the most popular kids cartoon of all time (and I say possibly mostly just because of Pokemon, which is by the way another show that wasnt any good but managed to trump all of its more well-written competition).

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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by OLKv3 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:31 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
sintzu wrote:Overall I think a lot of attacks have lost their weight in modern DB compared to the original manga.
I mean, I think one of my biggest complaints with modern DB(Well, I say modern DB... It's pretty much just Super... Heroes is just a kinda dumb arcade game, so... Yeah, it's just Super) is the fact that nothing has any weight anymore.

Characters, attacks, backstories, everything is just "How many characters can we fit on screen at once, and how many nods to prior things can we put into this arc?" with no real consideration for how it flows as a functional story, or ties into the history of the series properly. They'll bring back the Mafuba, but its cool, mystical backstory is disregarded, its fatal/near-fatal consequences are gone, and ultimately it doesn't factor into the story in any meaningful way; it just holds the villain back for an episode so Vegeta can fight the other villain for a bit.
The whole thing just lacks weight, importance, consequence, and understanding of why the stuff they're bringing back worked in the first place, which is quite surprising given how well they seemed to understand that for the Blue Kaioken thing, which got a whole episode devoted to the consequences thereof, which ended up being one of the strongest episodes from that string of between-arc material.
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Re: Attacks are have become same-y

Post by Robo4900 » Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:42 am

Lightdasher wrote:I don't think it's just Super. Super is definitely the biggest offender to me though, and it upsets me at least a bit in that regard. Vegeta bringing back the Final Flash for the first time was nice, but even then I thought it was unlike Vegeta because, before Super, he'd always have a new attack as his big finisher unless we count non-canon events (Galick Gun, the attack dubbed "Atomic Blast" in the games that was meant to finish Majin Buu, Final Flash, and even Final Shine Attack, are good examples). I didn't even watch Super that much, but it got annoying how much he'd use the attack, as though the writers wanted him to have his own Kamehameha.

However, and especially concerning the topic as a whole, I do believe that we can see this same issue in Z and GT. A ton of characters used the Kamehameha in Z, even if only once, and GT's big attacks were flashy (Revenge Death Ball comes to mind first, then Shocking Death Ball), but they're also pretty samey. Not to mention that, despite a series where the main character is supposed to be a martial artist, the physical attacks barely ever show special distinction. It bugged me when Goku attacked Jiren for the first time and Krillin acknowledged Goku and Jiren both as martial artists, when all Goku was doing was spamming his closed fists to the guy at the time. I haven't had any training with that sort of thing, but that's an attack even I can do (even if I can't make it look as cool)!
Fair points all-round.
Puaru wrote:It would be nice if that was true, but I honestly dont think it is, especially not with kids. Remember, one of the single biggest cartoon crazes in history (speaking from a global perspective) was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And aside from the first few episodes, that show was honestly garbage. We all remember it as good, but going back and watching it now, it is painfully clear what a low-quality show it was. And yet, at the height of its popularity it was possibly the most popular kids cartoon of all time (and I say possibly mostly just because of Pokemon, which is by the way another show that wasnt any good but managed to trump all of its more well-written competition).
It isn't garbage.
It's definitely deeply flawed in ways that, looking back as an adult in the year 2018, makes it just fall completely flat in comparison to how you remember it when you saw it as a kid in the '80s, but ultimately, its animation was decent, its music was good, it had a good setup, and from what I remember, the writing wasn't bad.
Ultimately, it wasn't an all-time great show, but it was fine. There wasn't really anything like in on TV when it debuted, so while it wasn't a perfect execution of its premise, and it definitely suffers from all the same problems every other '80s cartoon suffered from(Most notably time constraints and low budgets), for what it was, it was a pretty good '80s cartoon.

I'm remind of Star Trek: The Original Series; it was a very unique show when it first aired, but looking back on it now, about half the episodes in the show are a bit crap, the special effects aren't convincing, the acting was often a bit too over the top, and the show overall was often quite campy and cheesy, but it was something people hadn't really seen before, and when it was good, it was damn good. So, people stuck with it. Similar to TMNT, it did a decent job at doing something that no one had really done before, and while it's deeply flawed on reflection, and other shows have done it better, when it was on TV, it was doing new things, it was often doing them well, and it was generally an hour(Half for TMNT) of TV every week that was worth watching.

So, really, I don't think you gain any value in this argument by saying a show from the '80s doesn't hold up anymore, and using that to counter my argument that kids deserve better than some of the crap people think they'll just watch regardless is something that I don't think really works.
Today, we have shows like the original Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Avatar... Go back a few years(And given the nature of reruns, that's not a stretch) and you have Ben 10(The original one), Danny Phantom, Invader Zim, the 2011 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers Prime... I could keep going. The point is that nowadays, there's a plethora of great shows airing on TV, so in order to get to the top, you have to make shows on that standard. The animation has to be nice, the writing has to be sharp, etc.
Sure, sometimes you'll get the anomalous piece of crap show that gets popular; Teen Titans Go, for instance. But look at "Grown-up" TV too; Big Brother, X-Factor, Atlantis, and other crap somehow gets a big audience, but the fact still remains that those are just outliers. The real popular stuff is the actually good stuff. Usually.

In any case, my ultimate point isn't that only good shows will invariably get popular, or that popular shows will always be good, it's that something being "For kids" isn't a reason to put zero effort into it. Probably my favourite two shows when I was a kid were Animaniacs and Pinky And The Brain, both shows that my parents and my siblings consider to still be good shows that hold up to this day. Not every show is an Animaniacs or a Pinky And The Brain, but if you do make a show like that, and it doesn't fail the lottery of TV production/airing(Ratings, toy sales, etc.), you have a real winner.
And no, not every good kids' show is of that level, just like how not every grown-up show is a Star Trek: Next Generation, or a Breaking Bad, but if TNG and BB hadn't been good, they wouldn't have got anywhere near as popular as they are. And if Animaniacs hadn't been as good as it was, it wouldn't be popular enough for Hulu to be looking at reviving it.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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