DB's Revival

[Robo4900]

something that's not meant to be analyzed and deconstructed

I take issue with this. If "Not being meant to be analysed and deconstructed" is a factor in anything, then all forms of critical analysis is silly and futile. Star Wars -- the original film -- isn't meant to be analysed and deconstructed, it's meant to be watched and enjoyed. And yet, you'll be hard-pressed to convince anyone that it's not worth analysing/deconstructing Star Wars.

Not caring about analysing/deconstructing things is one thing, but "Not meant to be analysed" is a real pet peeve of mine. At best, it's an easy way of excusing bad writing. You're allowed to enjoy things, even if I could critically analyse it and list a bunch of reasons why it doesn't work on a narrative level, but the problem there wouldn't be that I'm analysing something that's not meant to be analysed, the problem would be that I'm being a dick by trying to tell you not to enjoy a thing. But if no one's saying this to you, and this is just being said as a general dismissal of criticism, I'd say it's a pretty weak way to dissuede criticism.

I'm sure this wasn't your intent, but this idea of things "Not being meant to be analysed" bugs the hell out of me, and I feel like it's something that needs to be said in this thread; if you enjoy a thing, then good for you, and I mean that without a hint or irony, sarcasm, or anything else malicious like that. Anyone who tries to ruin your fun is a dick. But this cuts both ways; you are, equally, allowed to really not enjoy a thing, and you're allowed to criticise it, and in fact, one can get a lot of joy out of criticising something they didn't like, so ultimately it does still result in enjoyment. Yucking someone's yum on this, whether intentional or not, is just as bad as telling someone not to enjoy the work.

[ABED]

I would argue that critiquing and deconstructing why something failed the same as you would for something you believe works is a fun and useful exercise.

[Kamiccolo9]

I mean, do what you want, I'm not one to judge. Although perhaps I should have said "overanalyzing." I don't see where I excused Super's writing; I believe I just called it a "mindlessly entertaining cash-grab." And just like I wouldn't spend hours debating whether or not the Mailbox in Blue's Clues lives a satisfying life despite being a stationary object whose sole purpose is to have objects shoved inside and ripped out of him, I also lack the energy to argue with some guy on the internet whether or not Vegeta "had" to throw dirt in Zarbon's eyes in order to beat him, or whether the anime or manga matches some pseudo-mythical Toriyama outline that we'll never see more faithfully, or whether Jiren is a stupid character for his open-ended, unexplored, somewhat generic backstory or an interesting one for being essentially the metaphorical "wall" for Goku to overcome in human form, or that one guy who is constantly spamming how Zamasu is the second coming of Christ because of his themes or whatever.

Maybe it's just my time spent here; it's been 5 years and some 10,000 posts, but the community has soured me on engaging in fandom discussions to a great extent in recent years, and I'd rather just sit back and enjoy the show when I'm in the mood, and be able to discuss it on friendly terms without a swarm of people cutting each others' throats so that they can be the first to say how shitty it is.

So, feel free to dislike the new stuff. That's your prerogative, and to be honest, and I say this with no malice or ill-intent, I really don't care. From what I've seen, despite never really interacting with you, you're not really one of the people I'm talking about, and generally seem to be a reasonable person. I've got no problem with your opinion. Lance is another whose view I respect, and he's clear on how much he viscerally loathes Super. And now that I've turned this into another post on the quality of the fandom, I'll just end by saying that I'd rather spend my time enjoying myself than engaging with a fandom that increasingly seems to be more about fostering toxicity than having legitimate discussion.

[Ssjcell]

I was in Ressurection F and I hated that movie.

See, I'm unbiased.

Lord beerus what is your role in super?

To destroy shit, eat food and look awesome while doing it.

Cool I like the beerus voice bro

[Robo4900]

I would argue that critiquing and deconstructing why something failed the same as you would for something you believe works is a fun and useful exercise.

Agreed.

It's not for everyone, but I find critiquing and such to be half the fun of consuming media.

[...]

I think we've all had negative experiences in this fandom. I've been involved in the effort to get the broadcast audio into official hands over the past two years, so I've been at ground zero for basically all the Dragon Ball drama that's happened over the past couple of years. And as a fan of both Rick And Morty and Homestuck, I've seen fandoms go bad. I think Dragon Ball, at least here on Kanzenshuu, remains fairly pleasant.

Still, I get where you're coming from. Again, I was mainly just aiming to put a spotlight on the "Not meant to be analysed" sentiment, which is something that frustrates me a lot online, particularly in this fandom. If all you want to do is sit back and enjoy, by all means, do so. You're probably having a much happier time for it than the cynical gits like myself are.

[Majin Buu]

No, I have not. I would rather Dragon Ball be allowed to just exist as a completed work.

If Kikuchi had returned to provide new music scores though, that alone would see me giving the exact opposite answer.

[Lord Beerus]

I would rather Dragon Ball be allowed to just exist as a completed work.

Dragon Ball is a completed work. It was completed back in 1995 and nothing has changed that.

[Majin Buu]

Dragon Ball is a completed work. It was completed back in 1995 and nothing has changed that.

It can't be considered a completed work anymore if they keep going back to it and retconning and adding stuff that's supposed to fit into it.

[Forte224]

Dragon Ball is a completed work. It was completed back in 1995 and nothing has changed that.

It can't be considered a completed work anymore if they keep going back to it and retconning and adding stuff that's supposed to fit into it.

Sure you can. It had a definitive ending. The author intended it to end at volume 42. Bringing it back up doesn't affect that, you can still read all 42 volumes and not feel like anything is missing.

[zDBZ]

I liked Battle of Gods quite a bit. As a one-off nostalgia "Return to Dragon Ball" experience, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. I got to see the characters I loved doing entertaining things. It had two new characters that were likewise interesting as well as relatively unique within the series. And as tired as I am of transformations, Super Saiyan God was a design and concept I actually rather liked.

And then Resurrection F came along and... sigh. I remember being so bored in the theatre. It was everything I didn't want in terms of soulless nostalgia pandering. Their own marketing said it was the worst wish in history. In reality, it was pretty much the same wish everyone makes on the Dragon Balls, and it resulted in a slightly inconvenient afternoon. It was said his hardline original editor praised the story. But there was no story. Just ten minutes of setup, followed by a not terribly interesting bullet points rehash of The Freeza Arc. Another transformation was thrown in, this one not nearly as interesting as the previous one. But apparently it was what everyone else wanted because it was popular enough to launch a mediocre-to-terrible television series.

I tried. I really did. And there were some decent episodes of Super. But there wasn't a single storyline I found even remotely compelling. I really thought I was going to like the Tournament of Power going in. The recruitment episodes made it seem promising. But I guess they shot their wad there because following that was month upon month of dreary, boring, pointless, confusing, un-engaging fighting.

Then there's the upcoming movie. I'm holding out hope. But once again, it's pandering to nostalgia, which is all the franchise seems able to do. And they're purposely targeting a Western audience, which really frightens me since the typical "Western DB fan" is a fan of the Faulconer music, monster truck rally announcer, pro-wrestling dub. So I fully expect it to be just as fight-heavy and story-lacking as anything else lately.

In short, Dragon Ball's revival has been a colossal disappointment to me, and... honestly, while there's no way in hell it's going to happen, part of me hopes this movie bombs hard because maybe that will kill this zombie franchise. But I am seriously at the point where, if this movie is not good, I'm not sure how much more of this I can stomach before I just stop following it entirely.

I'll agree with all of this, except that I don't enjoy Battle of Gods very much. The Super Saiyan God concept was an awkward fit for me, Beerus was too goofy for me to take him seriously as an antagonist, and the fact that Beerus, from the very beginning, started to get rammed into past events in a way that shank the universe and diminished established characters really rubbed me the wrong way.

[Lord Beerus]

Dragon Ball is a completed work. It was completed back in 1995 and nothing has changed that.

It can't be considered a completed work anymore if they keep going back to it and retconning and adding stuff that's supposed to fit into it.

None of stories after the conclusion of the manga have had any physical effect on Toiryama's work. As in, the manga hasn't been rewritten to accommodate the retcons.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Dragon Ball is a completed work. It was completed back in 1995 and nothing has changed that.

It can't be considered a completed work anymore if they keep going back to it and retconning and adding stuff that's supposed to fit into it.

You don't have to count the new content if you don't want to. If you don't like it just read the 42 volumes of the manga or original DB and DBZ/DBK animes. I don't like the changes being made to the original story but I am grateful that it still exists and can be owned in physical form.

[SSJgogeto]

In general terms I'm very satisfied.

Tarble's OVA is nice, BoG is good, RoF is tolerable and the next movie sound very promising. Super have his problems (both anime and manga), but is still enjoyable.

Don't care about the games though. It's nice to see a What If transformation but that's it.

[Doctor.]

To the posts above: analysing what you're watching is paramount to enjoying it. I can't just "turn my brain off." Suspension of disbelief is fine, but not if the story is so mind-numbingly stupid that it comes close to insulting my intelligence. You can say that the original series and Super are not too different in terms of stupidity, but that's where I'd disagree completely.

[Majin Buu]

None of stories after the conclusion of the manga have had any physical effect on Toiryama's work. As in, the manga hasn't been rewritten to accommodate the retcons.

Yes, the manga isn't literally being rewritten; but I still have to acknowledge retcons that inevitably affect it. For instance, I still have to acknowledge that Buu is no longer the accidental creation of an evil wizard. I still have to acknowledge that Freeza knew about Beerus and Buu and had to get Beerus' approval (or something like that, correct me if I'm wrong) to destroy planet Vegeta.

I still have to acknowledge that Super is supposed to be happening during the 10 year gap between the Buu arc and the end of Z. Yeah, I can just "ignore" all of this stuff, but I can't outright pretend that it doesn't exist.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Yes, the manga isn't literally being rewritten; but I still have to acknowledge retcons that inevitably affect it. For instance, I still have to acknowledge that Buu is no longer the accidental creation of an evil wizard. I still have to acknowledge that Freeza knew about Beerus and Buu and had to get Beerus' approval (or something like that, correct me if I'm wrong) to destroy planet Vegeta.

I still have to acknowledge that Super is supposed to be happening during the 10 year gap between the Buu arc and the end of Z. Yeah, I can just "ignore" all of this stuff, but I can't outright pretend that it doesn't exist.

You don't have to acknowledge all that in the slightless, none of that stuff is writen in manga form in the original 42 volumes and therefore does not affect the writen story.

[Majin Buu]

You don't have to acknowledge all that in the slightless, none of that stuff is writen in manga form in the original 42 volumes and therefore does not affect the writen story.

With everyone harping about how Toriyama's involvement makes all of that stuff canon, it's not easy to just ignore it; especially if I want to discuss the story with other people.

[Bebi Hatchiyack]

Something funny is that the revival started 10 years ago the 21th September of the year 2008. With Yo Son Goku & Friend return !!

Prior to this year Dragon Ball was almost dead holding just by one thread of life thanks to video games, heck even Dragon Ball Online or Heroes were a thing. So from 1997 (end of GT) to 2007 the licence was just almost under its grave.

If I were to put things into perspective (I love that) we have two things that helped for the revival. Dragon Ball Kai and Dragon Ball Online. Once Yo Son Goku & Friend return !! was done in 2008 they jumped with Kai the following year. In 2010 Dragon Ball Online went out in South Korea. Those two things were enough to spark the revival of the franchise, Toei began the ground work of what will become Battle of Gods and Namco Bandai with the Dragon Ball Online source material they created Dragon Ball Heroes. Two things that ignited the spark into a blazing flame. Then the rest is history but what a crazy history one.

I still don't believe everything that happened thus far and still I'm amazed by all those things. Let's not forget also the tiny things that put together helped a lot, like episode of bardock and plan to exterminate the Saiya-jin, The later tie in with the video game Raging Blast 2 who helped to build the ground of Xenoverse which is tie with Dragon Ball Heroes.

OH MY I loved this revival, not perfect but what a blast.

[Kunzait_83]

With everyone harping about how Toriyama's involvement makes all of that stuff canon, it's not easy to just ignore it; especially if I want to discuss the story with other people.

What people always seem unable or unwilling to grasp is that Toriyama's involvement in Super is only just BARELY more than his involvement was in GT. Apart from the films, which he was certainly heavily involved in (to the best of my knowledge: RoF and Broly are 100% scripted by Toriyama, and BoG was dramatically reworked and polished by him from a pre-existing draft), Toriyama otherwise isn't "writing" Super: he's providing very rough outlines for other teams of writers to actually flesh out and do the heavy lifting bringing to life.

In terms of the creative process, GT and Super are hardly THAT far removed from one another, as they're both ultimately far more of Toei's original anime creations than they are Toriyama's. Super indeed has a bit more of Toriyama's hand in it than GT did thanks to those outlines and the core concepts coming straight from Toriyama: but ultimately, its not by THAT much more when all's said and done.

With DB/Z, Toriyama was literally writing and drawing pretty much EVERYTHING himself week to week via the manga, with the anime more or less copying and pasting it nearly verbatim (with only some relatively minor tweaks and added original filler). The original series was for the most part very much an auteur's vision. Super by contrast is largely being crafted by a committee of Toei writers and artists, with Toriyama only responsible for the barest-most basic core ideas and story trajectory.

The reason I think that people harp so much on Toriyama's bullet-pointed napkin notes for Super is due to the fandom today having such an over the top ravenously hungry desire for Dragon Ball to return in as much the same exact fashion as it was during its halcyon years (something that most U.S. fans of today had ultimately missed out on), that they're willing to take whatever scraps of "official" involvement that Toriyama has in it and magnify it a hundred fold. They want very much for "the good ol' days" to come back once again, so much so that they'll desperately cling for dear life onto any remote shred of indication that this is somehow the 90s all over again.

Conversely, people also tend to drastically downplay Toriyama's involvement in GT because GT is so unpopular and has such a meme-driven momentum within fandom to be seen as a "non-canon" aberration or whatever. In reality, Toriyama's involvement in GT was somewhat larger than most fans want to admit to, while his involvement in Super (outside of the films anyway) appears to be FAR less than what most fans are desperate to want to believe it is. Even with regards to Toyotaro's manga: all Toriyama does with that is give the dude some bits of advise every now and again, and maybe occasionally help touch up or redraw a botched panel or two: and before you know it, everyone immediately blows this up into "Toriyama's practically drawing a new Dragon Ball manga!"

The whole thing reeks of desperation on the fans' end, and its honestly kind of sad at this point.

The one and ONLY piece of Dragon Ball media that is 100% entirely from the pen of Toriyama in much the same way as the original run of the series was is of course... Dragon Ball Minus. Which can arguably be worthy of the crown of "single worst piece of official DB media to ever come out of Japan" and is certainly and without question the single worst thing to come out of the revival thus far (with Heroes and Episode of Bardock nipping closely behind at its heels).

[PFM18]

To the posts above: analysing what you're watching is paramount to enjoying it. I can't just "turn my brain off." Suspension of disbelief is fine, but not if the story is so mind-numbingly stupid that it comes close to insulting my intelligence.

It's a good thing we don't have that problem.

You can say that the original series and Super are not too different in terms of stupidity

This is 1000% true. Frankly, I don't see how you can argue otherwise, or at least argue in favor of the original being less stupid. I think people don't view them in the same lens, probably because they saw the original series for the first time when they were much younger.

Take the Cell/Android arc for example. It quite literally epitomizes stupidity. Nothing in Super is even close to this stupid.

Trunks comes and warns everyone of these Androids, who despite him being strong enough to slice up and disintegrate the galactic emperor, is deathly afraid of them. The logical conclusion here, is to find this Doctor using the magical wish orbs that they have available to them, and stop him from making the Androids. But they decide that they were just going to let him make these Androids because they apparently want a challenge. Up to this point in the manga, we get very little if any indication that these characters are perfectly willing to jeopardize the entire Earth in favor of their own challenge in a fight. It just comes completely out of nowhere and blatantly only happens for plot convenience and no other reason whatsoever. Then, the Androids show up and Vegeta and Piccolo easily dispose of 19 and 20 respectively, and Gero/20 is on the run. They easily beat these Androids, and they didn't get a challenge, and then they inconspicuously want to stop Gero from activating these Androids now when they didn't before. A clear 180, with no explanation whatsoever. Then, Vegeta lets Cell reach his perfect form for the sake of a challenge without considering the possible dangerous implications. Somehow, everyone is mad at him for it? Even though they all literally did the same thing before? Vegeta is the ONLY character that stays consistent in the arc.

Also, we get introduced to the idea of Bulma being a mother. Surely, the father is the guy who she has been dating throughout the entire series right? The guy who's entire character in the first arc revolved around the fact that the only thing that he wanted was a girlfriend? Nope. Not that guy at all. Why? He cheated, despite us getting absolutely indication whatsoever that he is the type of morally questionable person to do something like that. Why isn't it Yamcha? Because Toryama needed a kid from the future that could be a Super Saiyan. Absolutely no reason other than plot convenience. Nothing coherent about this revelation in the slightest.

Look at the Red Ribbon Army arc and the Piccolo Daimao arcs. They quite literally have the same formula. Our heroes and some evil party are looking for the Dragon Balls, Goku fights them, loses, and then drinks some fucking water in order to gain enough power to turn the tables. (The power boost in the RRA arc isn't directly from the water, but it is still associated with the water.)

Super has stupid power-ups? Like ya know, a legendary ritual or training with a God that can literally destroy the Universe in an instant? Well, the original drinks some fucking water to get a huge power-up. Much more reasonable.