Does Dragon Ball have the largest, least toxic, fandom in existence of fictional franchises?

[MasenkoHA]

Criticizing female characters doesn't equal misogyny, only PC people/SJWs think it does smh. Most criticism of those characters centers around their writing, not that they are women.
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This is a fandom that puts someone like Broly on a pedastal despite his “character” (and I use that term with extreme generosity) being entirely shit.

[zarmack]

Criticizing female characters doesn't equal misogyny, only PC people/SJWs think it does smh. Most criticism of those characters centers around their writing, not that they are women.
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This is a fandom that puts someone like Broly on a pedastal despite his “character” (and I use that term with extreme generosity) being entirely shit.

And what exactly makes Broly so bad compared to nearly every other movie villain save Cooler? Much of the Broly hate comes from pseudo-intellectualism and a deeply held denial in much of the fandom that DB is chaddy fight show lmao. This video explains a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-9cmPufuBI

[MasenkoHA]

And what exactly makes Broly so bad compared to nearly every other movie villain save Cooler?

Please, I’m hardly singing the praises of the movie villains the vast majority of the non-Broly villains with the exception of Cooler and maaaaybe Telluce and Garlic Jr are pretty much ignored by the fandom and not without reason.

The point I’m making (and you’re clearly trying to ignore) is that Broly is placed with high reverence despite his character being Me strong me hate Goku because baby cry when I was baby grrrr

Much of the Broly hate comes from pseudo-intellectualism and a deeply held denial in much of the fandom that DB is chaddy fight show lmao.

Or because ya know he’s a terribly written character (even by Dragon Ball standards which weren’t a high standards to begin with) with a laughably bad backstory you would think it was a joke except its played with complete sincerity. And he got 3 movies and a soon to be a 4th

[ClutchBangstrip]

All the piddly nonsense people might bring up (even battle power scaling stuff) is just that: piddly nonsense in the grand scheme of things, easily avoidable/ignorable, and has zero impact on the larger franchise and fandom as a whole and/or its production. Fans arguing over the scaling and writing, no matter how overwhelming it may seen at the time when reading forum threads or video comments, really has zero impact on a goddamn thing.

It certainly "helps"(?) that Dragon Ball's production has a massive language barrier protecting it from a massive portion of its international fanbase.

I feel the same way. That's honestly what got me to thinking about this. All the "piddly nonsense" never seems to overtake the general narrative. It's as if nothing rises above being a subgroup's issue.

90% of DB fans have no idea what power scaling is, let alone non fans.

[Vegard Aune]

If you think the DB fandom doesn't get really toxic, I got three words for you: "Broadcast Audio Wars."

I'm unfamiliar with this. What's going on? If I have to guess, I would base it on the Japan vs the Western world fight I hear about in other fandoms (e.x. only Japanese people should read VNs as they aren't made in English so Western people shouldn't be allowed). I'm guessing that the Japanese have pride and don't want to share anything with us. I remember AnimeAjay made a video about broadcast audio and how the Japanese side "went dark" for no reason after Toei rejected the media and we were going to to the trade. I hear a lot of things about Japan not liking us (like my above comment on VNs). I heard on these forums that we never got the Son Goku Returns OVA because the Japanese simply don't want us to have it (although I'm sure there are other issues involved). A sort of "we have it, you don't" attitude. I just hear a lot of crap coming from Japan and how they regard us. I know not everyone is like this, but usually people with power (e.x. broadcast audio) don't want to share it with us.

In short, the broadcast audio was leaked a while back and caused the biggest, most absurd flamewar I have ever seen, which got to the point where the people who shared it had to delete it again because not only they but several others whom fans just assumed were involved were getting harrassed to no end over it. Quite a few people involved in this flamewar also tried to pass themselves off as prominent names in this fanbase. I know I saw a "VegettoEX" at some point and I feel like I've seen and heard the real guy's thoughts and responses on stuff over the years to know that he would not lash out at someone with curses and death threats over sharing audio recordings.

[Fizzer]

From what I've seen, there are a lot of toxic people that have watched and talk about DBZ out there on YouTube, Reddit and so on, but the actual fandom, found in places like this and made up of people who consider Dragon Ball a big part of their lives, is as good as you can reasonably expect from a huge, diverse group of people on the internet. Yeah there are disagreements between individuals that sometimes get pretty heated, but it's rarely actually toxic.

I'd say the same about Doctor Who, another fandom I'd consider myself a part of, and I think the reason is that both stories encourage people to be better versions of themselves, albeit in different ways. Fandoms are self-selecting, and Dragon Ball is ultimately a show about self improvement and Doctor Who ultimately a show about striving to be kind. Recently there's been high profile controversy around Doctor Who but I think it's mostly from outside the Fandom^TM, eg people who haven't noticed that for 55 years it's been a fundamentally political show.

The fandom reflects the franchise, to an extent.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Least toxic fandom in existence? I wish! It's one of the most toxic fandoms you could find yourself in, but you just make things work and get around it.

[VegettoEX]

I know I saw a "VegettoEX" at some point and I feel like I've seen and heard the real guy's thoughts and responses on stuff over the years to know that he would not lash out at someone with curses and death threats over sharing audio recordings.

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea what this is even about, so that's clearly not me. It should be fairly obvious what limited circles I run in and where I post, independent of your point about who I am and what I act like.

Least toxic fandom in existence? I wish! It's one of the most toxic fandoms you could find yourself in, but you just make things work and get around it.

Compared to some of the other people sharing things, you haven't actually cited anything about this so-called toxicity.

I continue to maintain that the vast majority of it is a vocal-minority that post/create around very limited topics that have no substantial reach outside of their own audience and have zero impact on the larger fandom as a whole or its production in any way, shape, or form.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

And what exactly makes Broly so bad compared to nearly every other movie villain save Cooler?

Please, I’m hardly singing the praises of the movie villains the vast majority of the non-Broly villains with the exception of Cooler and maaaaybe Telluce and Garlic Jr are pretty much ignored by the fandom and not without reason.

The point I’m making (and you’re clearly trying to ignore) is that Broly is placed with high reverence despite his character being Me strong me hate Goku because baby cry when I was baby grrrr

Much of the Broly hate comes from pseudo-intellectualism and a deeply held denial in much of the fandom that DB is chaddy fight show lmao.

Or because ya know he’s a terribly written character (even by Dragon Ball standards which weren’t a high standards to begin with) with a laughably bad backstory you would think it was a joke except its played with complete sincerity. And he got 3 movies and a soon to be a 4th

I asked a few people why they like Broly so much. They said it's simply that he's so powerful, and they point to how he destroyed everyone in the first movie. So apparently it's enough to make him cool. I don't get it, but whatever. And remember, Toriyama has said in interviews that he couldn't think of someone after Broly which is why he got used three times. And he's the main antagonist of the upcoming movie partially because of his popularity here in the West.

In general, people seem to not care about a character's gender but rather something they have done (or not done) in a show. As zarmack said, it's mostly PC people/SJWs who instantly jump to "misogyny" rather than consider for even a moment there is something else we like/dislike about a character.

We care for what we thought would be her skipping 500+ episodes (franchise, excluding GT), 42 manga volumes, and decades of work that Goku went through to get to where he is as of Super before mastering Ultra Instinct. It was the pure BS of being able to jump through all of them simply because she wanted to that we disliked.

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about Broly going from below base Vegeta to above SSJB Goku + Vegeta combined in a few hours?

No idea. I have yet to see the movie so I cannot justify or hate it. I don't know if he starts out as someone stronger than those two or if he literally starts out as weak as say, Vegeta at the beginning of Z, and then rises up and above post-Super Goku and Vegeta. If they have an explanation, any at all, I'll most likely be fine. I didn't care for Freeza's explanation on how he ascended past Goku and Vegeta, and I like the s-cells for the Saiyans. It makes perfect sense and I loved it. So with Broly? We'll see. I just want a good movie first and foremost.

5.5 weeks left!! =D =D =D

[VegettoEX]

As zarmack said, it's mostly PC people/SJWs who instantly jump to "misogyny" rather than consider for even a moment there is something else we like/dislike about a character.

This just isn't true and is revisionist history surrounding the "discourse" out there about these characters and their transformations.

An overwhelming amount of commentary (thankfully not here) was related specifically to their gender and was littered with pejorative epithets.

I'm sure there were plenty of people who genuinely disliked the characters based on whatever they disliked the characters for. These reasonable people were not the ones making the noise, as they rarely are.

[ABED]

It seems like every fandom's level of toxicity is proportionally the same. THe difference is the level of visibility of the franchise.

[ClutchBangstrip]

The thing I find bizzare is that the community at large seems to like the Saiyin chicks, now. I saw more people asking for them to appear in the movie than anything else.

They were handled poorly, tho I love their designs and personality. It seems the irrational hate has died down, which is pretty suprising given the community's size.

[ABED]

The thing I find bizzare is that the community at large seems to like the Saiyin chicks, now. I saw more people asking for them to appear in the movie than anything else.

They were handled poorly, tho I love their designs and personality. It seems the irrational hate has died down, which is pretty suprising given the community's size.

Much of that sort of hate subsides after people see these things in action. People hated it when Daniel Craig was first announced as 007.

[Lukmendes]

The thing I find bizzare is that the community at large seems to like the Saiyin chicks, now. I saw more people asking for them to appear in the movie than anything else.

They were handled poorly, tho I love their designs and personality. It seems the irrational hate has died down, which is pretty suprising given the community's size.

First announcement of anything will have people overrate and overhate those things, after a few days both sides will calm down, specialy the latter.

It helps that Caulifla and Kale are females too, even if we have people talking shit about them because they are females, an even larger ammount of people will like them because of it, since DB fans have a soft spot for female characters if the popularity of characters like Zangya and Fasha are any hint.

[Yuli Ban]

Caulifla and Kale were not at all helped by bullshitting their way to Super Saiyan so easily, and the S-cell stuff is also still a hard sell for many nerds who are still upset over Midichlorians. It's just natural that there was going to be a misogynist backlash to them getting Super Saiyan— you'd have to have been ignoring the fact that, for 25 years before them, there was a subset of Dragon Ball fans who vehemently shot down any suggestion that Pan and Bra ought to have gone Super Saiyan on the basis that they were indeed girls. This same subset is the one that got worked up over the U6 girls, but now they just have to deal with it. This was never a large group; I'd argue that many alt-righters, whose last memory with Dragon Ball was the MAD TV parodies if even that, jumped onto the bandwagon when they saw it was a thing.
The big problem is that this also overlaps with the larger subset of fans who hate Super Saiyan being "given out" to characters (i.e. "the Super Saiyan bargain bin"), who already didn't like Goten and Trunks going SS because it "cheapened the transformation" and/or indulged in the worst aspects of Dragon Ball (e.g. "being a show about muscly characters who scream to power up and then start glowing gold" and "a show where only certain characters from a certain racial group will ever matter"). During the heyday of the anti-U6 hate, both groups were speaking as one so it made the former look much, much larger than it was.

With Broly, it's another thing— Broly's already been established as the legendary Super Saiyan where his whole concept is that he is a sickeningly overpowered character who can't control his abilities. Kale being the legendary Super Saiyan of U6 is the primary reason why she didn't get hit with anywhere near as much hate as Caulifla. To this day, I still am not sure about Caulifla— sure, there's the S-cell explanation, but that just raises so many more questions. Considering I don't even like her design to begin with (besides her hair), I can see how someone might construe me as a sexist Caulifla hater, but if Gohan were just now introduced and did what Caulifla has done, I'd call him a cheap Gary Stu (and it'd actually fit since he's literally the son of the main character and a princess, whom even enemies respect, unlike Caulifla who is just an overpowered punk/outlaw). I don't much like Caulifla more because she's the personification of some major narrative problems with Dragon Ball, not because she threatens my already nonexistent masculinity.


When it comes to overall toxicity, it's not the least toxic by any metric, but it's definitely not one I'd place anywhere near the top 50.

[Kunzait_83]

if Gohan were just now introduced and did what Caulifla has done, I'd call him a cheap Gary Stu (and it'd actually fit since he's literally the son of the main character and a princess, whom even enemies respect, unlike Caulifla who is just an overpowered punk/outlaw).

Wait, what?

[MasenkoHA]

Caulifla and Kale were not at all helped by bullshitting their way to Super Saiyan so easily, and the S-cell stuff is also still a hard sell for many nerds who are still upset over Midichlorians. It's just natural that there was going to be a misogynist backlash to them getting Super Saiyan— you'd have to have been ignoring the fact that, for 25 years before them, there was a subset of Dragon Ball fans who vehemently shot down any suggestion that Pan and Bra ought to have gone Super Saiyan on the basis that they were indeed girls.

Bra there was no reason for her to Super Saiyan based on her character as Bulma Jr/Daddy’s little princess. Though its weird she should be a lot stronger than Pan but we have no reason to believe she’s any stronger than the average teenage girl with a shopping addiction.

Pan not going Super Saiyan was a bit ridiculous especially because by that point you had second graders going Super Saiyan for funsies
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, but if Gohan were just now introduced and did what Caulifla has done, I'd call him a cheap Gary Stu (and it'd actually fit since he's literally the son of the main character and a princess, whom even enemies respect, unlike Caulifla who is just an overpowered punk/outlaw). I don't much like Caulifla more because she's the personification of some major narrative problems with Dragon Ball, not because she threatens my already nonexistent masculinity.
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The problem with Mary Sue/Gary Stu is the term is so grossly overused and misapplied that it just stopped being a valid critique a long time ago

[Polyphase Avatron]

if Gohan were just now introduced and did what Caulifla has done, I'd call him a cheap Gary Stu (and it'd actually fit since he's literally the son of the main character and a princess, whom even enemies respect, unlike Caulifla who is just an overpowered punk/outlaw).

Wait, what?

Chi-Chi's father is Ox King, so being a king apparently means she's a princess.

[Kunzait_83]

Chi-Chi's father is Ox King, so being a king apparently means she's a princess.

D'oh.

I also read that sentence totally incorrectly: I mistook "being the son of the main character and a princess" as Yuli saying that Gohan was the son of the main character as well as also being a princess. So yeah, needless to say I was a tad perplexed there.

Bra there was no reason for her to Super Saiyan based on her character as Bulma Jr/Daddy’s little princess. Though its weird she should be a lot stronger than Pan but we have no reason to believe she’s any stronger than the average teenage girl with a shopping addiction.

Bra also wasn't a martial artist, and from what we're shown hadn't ever trained a day in her life. Pan, Goten, and Trunks were being properly trained seemingly from the moment they could walk. I don't expect Bra to ever be shown going SSJ since she doesn't fight and lives as just an ordinary girl: Pan on the other hand is very much gung ho about martial arts training, and thus it makes total sense for there to be some degree of disappointment among fans that she was never given a chance to become an SSJ. The expectations for Pan and Bra are totally different and at opposite ends of the spectrum from one another.

[MasenkoHA]