I Like Jiren

[mrpinbert]

People complain allot that he has "no personality".

While it is true that he mostly kept himself to the sidelines throughout the tournament, this was part of his strategy.

Besides that I feel that he actually did get allot of character development in the last couple of episodes. ( I don't remember exactly what number, but from around 128 to 131 and maybe a couple of episodes from before that).

I watched 128 through to 131 again today.

Before fighting Goku, Jiren is someone that is very much attached to his past.

One of the things that I found very noticeable re-watching these episodes is that, while Jiren is constantly distant and aloof to the people around him from Universe 11.
It is very clear that allot of the people from Universe 11 would like to be Jiren's friend. Especially Belmod and Toppo seem like they are actually quite fond of Jiren, even though Jiren does not re-ciprocate these feelings because he doesn't allow himself to get attached to people anymore.


Is he up there with Frieza. Cell or Buu? I'm not sure about that. But I did think he was a pretty cool character and that he fit really well for the Tournament of Power Arc.

[Polyphase Avatron]

People complain allot that he has "no personality".

While it is true that he mostly kept himself to the sidelines throughout the tournament, this was part of his strategy.

His 'strategy' sucked though. He could have easily won the tournament by himself if he had fought from the beginning.

[ekrolo2]

Jiren problem is that he's not well presented at all. The stoic bad ass routine sets of plenty of bad alarm bells and the anime attempts to contextualize this as a sign of deep rooted trauma fails to make him more empathetic or interesting when it's delivered with Minus levels of zero fucks given to its delivery.

It feels like they were going for something like Batman and only wound up a generic, stoic bad ass who's also got generic anime villain sad backstory attached.

I fail to even see why anime Jiren is a member of the Pride Troopers at all since he doesn't seem to have any sense of justice beyond power which has nothing to do with saving people and sounds more like something an antagonist to the Pride Troopers would have as a motivation.

Jiren on paper is a great character, he could've been Goku Black level great but unlike his immediate predecessor, he didn't rise above his pitfalls.

[BrolyKale]

I like him too. I don't think he is a bad character at all, he might be simple/basic but not bad.

[Lord Beerus]

Jiren was a character that really wasn't suited for a "Tournament" like setting. He would have been better fit as the endgame boss for an adventure type of story arc.

The main issue with Jiren was that for 70% of his screentime they didn't much with his terms of characterization or character development. He was just designated to be the "wall" for the cast to overcome. Which in itself is fine... if Jiren isn't the basically the endgame antagonist but merely a hurdle leading to the "final boss" of the arc.

I made this comparison before and I'm sticking to it... Jiren is the Jotaro Kujo of Dragon Ball. Both are characters that have quite bland personalities but their presence in combat is so immense that it overshadows their two dimensional nature of being the "cool acting guy who does cool shit in fights and say cool things".

The main purpose of Jiren was him to be the biggest obstacle in the arc and provide a spectacle in every battle he takes part in to live up to the role, and he mostly lived up to that standard. I don't think any Dragon Ball fan will forget Goku vs Jiren.

[climatestrange]

My biggest problem with Jiren was how long it took for him to get any depth. I was okay with Hit being a stoic badass without much personality because he was the main opponent of a much shorter tournament arc. Jiren, on the other hand, was the antagonist of a 50+ episode arc and didn't get any personality or depth until the last few episodes. Even then, his backstory came in the form of a ham-fisted, generic exposition dump of a monologue. Like others have said, he could have been a good character if he was executed properly. His characterization in the final episode was pretty good in a vacuum, it just didn't work because of what came before it.

If they had dropped hints about Jiren's backstory and motivations throughout the arc, it would have been a much more interesting story. Maybe some of the other Pride Troopers could have had flashbacks to when they first met Jiren that would shed light on different angles of his personality. This would also help to establish his relationship with the other Pride Troopers. Part of Jiren's arc was supposed to be that he learns to accept Toppo and the others as his friends, but we barely get to see their relationship. Instead of showing us the important parts of Jiren's character arc, they just tell us and expect us to accept them.

[Tian]

I found him boring till Belmod or Vermoud told his past.

[Vijay]

Lol

Jiren makes Omega/Syn look like Frieza by comparison as far as character depth goes

Which is a joke cuz at Omega is blandest anime villain EVER imo. Garbage design, garbage feats & useless fighting style. And his pathetic 70 y/o chain-smoker (Hidekatsu Shibata I know I know) voice grates on my nerves

At least without flashback, dude would've had some sorta mystery as to how he became such stoic, assholish power hungry monster.

But dat....dat...dat 1 min flashback simply turned him into...actually degraded his character several notches which isnt great acheivement for a character already having zero personality, blandest Supermanish red spandex-wannabe gymsuit with weird EYES

But Jiren sure made me miss those wonderful baddies DB franchise had in the past like Daimou, Cell, Boo, Baby, Super 17, etc

Jiren was not an "awful" villain we deserved, but the one Supa fans needed (to rekindle their love for previous Z villains lol)

[sunsetshimmer]

I find completely nothing to like about him.

Design? Boring. There isn't anything special about him. Muscled ufo.
Personality? Doesn't have it.
Techniques? Doesn't have them.

I mean Broly and Omega at least had some iconic techniques and had at least a small bit of personality.
Not to mention designs being much more interesting.

[Ssjcell]

Yeah jiren was cool , super strong kind of a jerk though if you ask me...

[Sin]

I think I can see what they were trying to do with his backstory, trying to make us sympathise with his character, but it came across completely bland. His character seemed completely uninspired to me, but I did enjoy the final fight where he at least showed some personality - particularly when he breaks through his 'emotional shell'.



I definitely think he could become a much more interesting character going forward.

[GT_Goten10]

Easily one of the most boring characters I have ever seen I prefer Broly every day of the week over Jiren

[SupremeKai25]

The problem is that the Jiren arc was right after the Zamasu arc. And Zamasu was the most complex and multi-layed antagonist in Dragon Ball: Super by far. So, many people compared Jiren to Zamasu, and noticed that he was quite lacking in terms of personality and motivations. Which is also why many people wanted Zamasu to return (there were many theories regarding his possible ties with Future Zeno) or the Grand Priest to go rogue. Many people clearly didn't think that Jiren would be "final villain material".

[Kurakaio]

The problem is that the Jiren arc was right after the Zamasu arc. And Zamasu was the most complex and multi-layed antagonist in Dragon Ball: Super by far. So, many people compared Jiren to Zamasu, and noticed that he was quite lacking in terms of personality and motivations. Which is also why many people wanted Zamasu to return (there were many theories regarding his possible ties with Future Zeno) or the Grand Priest to go rogue. Many people clearly didn't think that Jiren would be "final villain material".

I don't think this is the issue. Jiren could have come at any point, and people would still say he's bland and boring. He doesn't automatically become less boring if Zamasu didn't happen.

[Vijay]

I think I can see what they were trying to do with his backstory, trying to make us sympathise with his character, but it came across completely bland. His character seemed completely uninspired to me, but I did enjoy the final fight where he at least showed some personality - particularly when he breaks through his 'emotional shell'.



I definitely think he could become a much more interesting character going forward.

Dat picture though

Color swap his skin & eye with Pink & Red

We got ourselves Super Boo at ToP!!!!!

You can argue the same can be said bout "Golden" Frieza & Goku Black, but hey those guys were beyond these simple superficial colour swappings

Frieza had an ancient history with Saiyans. As for Black...well these 3 words are enuf to define him: Mirai, Kaioshin & "ningen"

Jiren......had like...flashback...chikara....eh..drying there

[Cetra]

I find completely nothing to like about him.

Design? Boring. There isn't anything special about him. Muscled ufo.

Jiren is not some flying saucer. He is an ALF. An Alien Life Form. Not an Unidentified Flying Object.

And yes, in the final episodes I must say Jiren kinda grew on me a bit more as well. Especially when he fights against Goku and Freeza. That evil smile when he gets forced back before he tackles them again. Same for the picture from above.

[SupremeKai25]

The problem is that the Jiren arc was right after the Zamasu arc. And Zamasu was the most complex and multi-layed antagonist in Dragon Ball: Super by far. So, many people compared Jiren to Zamasu, and noticed that he was quite lacking in terms of personality and motivations. Which is also why many people wanted Zamasu to return (there were many theories regarding his possible ties with Future Zeno) or the Grand Priest to go rogue. Many people clearly didn't think that Jiren would be "final villain material".

I don't think this is the issue. Jiren could have come at any point, and people would still say he's bland and boring. He doesn't automatically become less boring if Zamasu didn't happen.

If Zamasu was never created, people would have way fewer expectations. Since the other original antagonists of Super were very bland (Beerus, Champa, Hit, Purple Vegeta, etc.). But Zamasu set the bar very high for future antagonists, especially after his mental and emotional breakdown in episode 66. So when people found out that the next big antagonist would be a grey alien with the personality depth of a toaster, obviously they were a little disappointed.

Frieza had an ancient history with Saiyans. As for Black...well these 3 words are enuf to define him: Mirai, Kaioshin & "ningen"

Jiren......had like...flashback...chikara....eh..drying there

Zamasu had a "flashback" of 7 episodes to explain his backstory, Jiren had a flashback of two minutes to explain his backstory. It's kind of hilarious, actually.

[Kataphrut]

Throw me in the "on paper he could have been great, in practice he's poor" camp. Nothing wrong with a simple design and he had a solid intimidation factor. The problem came when they suddenly decided to make him ABOUT something. An obsessive pursuit of personal improvement at the expense of interpersonal relationships is not a bad idea. In fact, it actually makes him a good foil to Goku and one of the more relatable villains, in theory. In practice, it was abrupt and poorly handled.

Still, he put on a good show and his breakdown in 130 followed by the conclusion in 131 actually did a decent job of righting the sinking ship. It was just rushed and jumbled. I think I'm more well disposed to him than he deserves because I see so much potential in him and I enjoyed his fights.

[Logania]

I couldn't care less about Jiren, as his whole role in the tournament is just the wall that the team has to overcome. It's really bland for the Tournament when even before it starts, everyone in the show is saying "Yeah, you see that guy? He's the strongest there is here in the tournament. No one can beat him, you can't win, good luck." Oh gee, I wonder who the last opponent is going to be here, surely not him...

Dragon Ball isn't really the series that can do the 'strongest, indestructible force' character as his whole gimmick to me, because that's EVERY Dragon Ball villain essentially. The only one that made it work in my opinion was Beerus as he's the only antagonist that essentially hasn't been beaten and is on the grand hierarchy of the DB Universe, so he has the position, title and power to back up his role. Jiren is just a strong dude in a tournament.

Even if he's meant as the wall of strength that is intimidating, he has no unique powers or ways of fighting to make him stand out or at least make up for his lack of personality. He's just strong, which is, again, almost every villain the cast has faced many, many times already. The only move that was generally unique was the move where he hits someone with a ki blast, they fly into the air, Jiren turns around and the guy blows up. Yeah, we've seen this with similar moves like Dirty Fireworks and Freeza killing Krillin, congratulations.

Hit is seen to most as similar to Jiren as a character and role in the series as the strongest force in the tournament, but he has abilities and ways of fighting we've never seen before with his Time-Skip and Self Improvement, giving us some of the most interesting fights the series has ever had. Yes, Jiren's few fights have great animation and spectacle, but they're the same kind of fights we've seen throughout all of Z/Super, there is nothing new with it.

Not saying he's the worst thing ever, his voice actor when he got serious and is fighting Goku was really great, one of my favorite VA's Dragon Ball has had in terms of action. But that's really the only thing I remember and like about him.

[Cipher]

I like Jiren ... in theory.

Everything is there to make him an interesting foil for Goku and even a suitable final (like, final-final) antagonist. In just about every way imaginable, he and Goku represent contradictions--not only to each other, but between different aspects of their own motivations as well--and those contradictions are ones relevant to the core fascinations of the series.

Jiren is all selfless justice, compared to all-avarice Goku, but the pursuit of that idea of justice manifests in a wish that would have, for its selfishness, left all the universes destroyed. Meanwhile, Goku is so narrow-mindedly focused on his own pursuits that any personal gains not related to them are to be put to use for others without a second thought. Goku doesn't claim to fight for others, while Jiren very much does, yet Goku continuously draws others toward them and morally betters them while Jiren pushes them away. Goku relies on finding and utilizing those stronger than him while Jiren's past experiences leave him fearing and denying the same thought (yet ironically that is the way to greater strength, which both Jiren and Goku desire). That Goku's motivation is growth for its own sake rather than growth for a separate purpose is inconceivable to Jiren, but it also winds up being the key he needs.

They're good foils, and the ways in which they're foils tie into everything the series does with its (also on the surface contradictory) themes of selfishness and forging interpersonal bonds. And that comes into play in the outcome of this arc as a stand-alone story, too, with both Freeza and Android #17's changes due to their interactions with Goku factoring centrally into its end.

I even like some of what the series does in terms of Jiren's execution, such as never explicitly revealing the contents of his wish. Knowing that, in some way, shape or form, it relates to either correcting or preventing a repeat of his past is enough, and it's enough to know that whatever it was has been discarded by the time he throws himself into enjoying the fight through Goku's perspective by the end.

But--

All of that comes across terribly. More so in the anime--where any hints of the elements I brought up are saved for the final moments of the arc and even then handled either ham-fistedly or focused on only in intervals--but this far the manga also hasn't provided a much more compelling alternative.

Keep on sailing, theoretical Jiren. May you one day find comfort on the shores of a reasonably executed version of your characterization.