Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by ABED » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:04 pm

He undid what he did to Gohan after the Cell Games BECAUSE he wasn't suited for the role.

I know I'm a broken record at this point, but after a certain amount of time, it's not a good idea to change the protagonist of the story. It feels like a very blatant attempt to keep the story going past the point it should have ended.

The Cell and Buu arcs aren't high on my list.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Cursed Lemon » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:14 pm

ruler9871 wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 5:52 pmGohan could have easily worked as the new protagonist if Toriyama didn't undo what he did with Cell Games Gohan in the Buu saga.
Gohan is boring when he isn't angry.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by MasenkoHA » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:17 pm

Gohan pretty much got all his development in the Saiyan saga

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by The Great Saiyaman » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:19 pm

And Gokus got all his development since... Well, arguably the first Tenkaichi tournament. That's a long time.

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Kakarot » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:22 pm

There's still so much you can do with the character of Son Goku as a protagonist, I'm glad he decided to focus on him after the Cell Saga. And I disagree with your title, the Zamasu arc was really strong.

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by ABED » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:22 pm

Goku isn't a dynamic character in that he doesn't change, but that doesn't mean he's not interesting. Change isn't inherently interesting even if it sometimes seems that way. Execution is everything.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by MasenkoHA » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:23 pm

The Great Saiyaman wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:19 pm And Gokus got all his development since... Well, arguably the first Tenkaichi tournament. That's a long time.
But not really.

I mean a key part of Goku’s character arc in the Saiyan and Namek sagas was accepting his Saiyan heritage.

Saying he got all his development by the first tournament is blatantly false.

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by The Great Saiyaman » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:31 pm

ABED wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:22 pm Goku isn't a dynamic character in that he doesn't change, but that doesn't mean he's not interesting. Change isn't inherently interesting even if it sometimes seems that way. Execution is everything.
I agree. It's why when Toriyama was writing him he got the nuances right. Whoever's writing Super just misses those beats, there fore making him a real moron in several notable instances. Compare Goku in the Cell and Buy arcs to his Super self and you'll see a more egotistical, self-service version of Goku in the latter. Some of the time.

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by The Great Saiyaman » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:34 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:23 pm
The Great Saiyaman wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:19 pm And Gokus got all his development since... Well, arguably the first Tenkaichi tournament. That's a long time.
But not really.

I mean a key part of Goku’s character arc in the Saiyan and Namek sagas was accepting his Saiyan heritage.

Saying he got all his development by the first tournament is blatantly false.
Except he didn't change, personality-wise, at all. He still strived to be stronger and didn't want people to needlessly die. If that's not part of his core, what is?

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by ABED » Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:43 pm

The Great Saiyaman wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:31 pm
ABED wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:22 pm Goku isn't a dynamic character in that he doesn't change, but that doesn't mean he's not interesting. Change isn't inherently interesting even if it sometimes seems that way. Execution is everything.
I agree. It's why when Toriyama was writing him he got the nuances right. Whoever's writing Super just misses those beats, there fore making him a real moron in several notable instances. Compare Goku in the Cell and Buy arcs to his Super self and you'll see a more egotistical, self-service version of Goku in the latter. Some of the time.
How so?
Except he didn't change, personality-wise, at all. He still strived to be stronger and didn't want people to needlessly die. If that's not part of his core, what is?
Goku's very concrete bound. He knows he is putting people in danger when he lets those villains go, but does it anyway because he wants to fight the strongest. It's only when he sees people suffer in front of him that he tries to stop it. He's less of a superhero than you seem to believe.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Zephyr » Tue Mar 12, 2019 1:14 am

Apologies for the very long post. The current waves of Cell arc and Boo arc criticisms that have come into vogue in fandom as of late have become huge pet peeves of mine, insofar as they appear to result from a failure to understand Dragon Ball's fundamental nature as a comedy story and as a martial arts story, or from "hot takes" that result from one-time speed-reading, consuming the series via anime dubs rather than the manga, or from spending more time engaging in the "series" via online critique rather than consuming the story proper. In other words, it tends to be rife with misconception, and involve missing a lot of the point of a lot of the story, neglecting a myriad of important points. This isn't to suggest that the OP necessarily falls into any of these categories, but, rather, to explain why I've got so much to say on these matters.

A couple months back, I made a post about "tone" in the series, and I think it's important to preface this post with an excerpt from that:

On the "martial arts story" end, it's highly recommended that anyone who hasn't peeped at Kunzait's Wuxia Thread do so at their earliest convenience.

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The Great Saiyaman wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:07 amI feel Dragon Ball, starting immediately with Goku and Vegeta's returns in the end of the Buu saga, became about those two and no one else. Don't get me wrong - I do love Vegetto and the final fight in the Kaioshin Realm and the Genki Dama, but I feel this all could've been saved up for use for a further, more final installement, as I do think the Buu saga was ready to be over when Gohan returned from the Kaioshin Realm. It diservices him and the arc a lot when Toriyama, I feel, caved in to pressure by the editors to hand the series back to Goku, It should've been different.
An important fact about the Boo arc is that Toriyama went into it intending for it to be the final story arc:
Toriyama wrote:
How did you feel as you were drawing the final portions of the series?
The Artificial Human and Cell story arc was pretty rough… I guess you could say I did all I could with Freeza, so I was burned out, and figured I couldn’t pull off a better battle than that. I thought, “Do I really have to keep going?” Even when Cell ended, it still didn’t feel like it could end. So before the Boo story arc began, I said “Once this next thing wraps up, I want to end it no matter what.” Because I thought there was no way for any stronger guys to pop up, or for Goku to get any stronger than he already was. So my starting point for the Boo arc was, “This is the end, so I’m going to draw whatever I want!”

This means that anything and everything that would have been really important or cool to have in the story needed to happen here. By its very design, this is the finale. All stops are going to be pulled out. In other words, if everything after Gohan's rematch with Boo was going to be part of Dragon Ball's story, it was going to happen in the same arc, for better or worse (and, I will now argue, it's indeed for the better).

That said, I don't think Goku and Vegeta taking over at the arc's back half is a disservice to Gohan as a character, or the story arc. Gohan is introduced to the Dragon Ball story as someone who wants to be a scholar, but has an insane degree of latent power that utterly eclipses that of his father. This is a Toriyama story, meaning that it is fundamentally a comedy, meaning that irony is all over the place here. This, specifically, is a very big example of irony.

His first battle sees him as a coward, who eventually grows a spine and does what he has to do. Every time between the Saiyan arc and the Cell Games, he's ready to fight, because it's what needs to be done. However, the Cell Games helps to underscore what sets him apart from his father (as well as Cell): he's not in it for the sport. Once Cell becomes Perfect, he acts as an "evil Goku" of sorts: letting his enemies go so they can improve for the sake of a rematch, holding an absurd spectacle of a tournament, advertising it on television, and even calling it the Cell Games. He's naturally hesitant and apprehensive about indulging Cell in his nonsense for very long. And because Gohan isn't into martial arts for the sport of it, he doesn't dedicate to it in his free time for its own sake. As a result, he's not terribly capable of accessing the depths of his power at will, it's always triggered by extreme distress and anger. Since his full power is tied to his emotions, he cannot simply bring it out, even when he needs and wants to. This is an important component of the drama during the Cell Games. In the end, he manages to tap into his full strength, and defeat his father's evil shadow. This, to me, delivers on the "promise" of Gohan having latent power that eclipses that of his father: it's finally used to save the day.

Now, Goku dies in this battle, and Gohan finishes Cell off. We skip forward, past seven years of peace. As far as Son Gohan is aware, these are the first seven of countless years of peace. Indeed, from a narrative perspective, the loose ends have been tied up, in the "world-ending threat" department. The Great Demon King and the Saiyans are pacified; Freeza is dead; the Red Ribbon Army's multi-layered revenge scheme has been thoroughly dismantled. Gohan, the kid who does not indulge in martial arts for its own sake, has slacked off. While Gohan is now the protagonist (as far as the story-as-presented is concerned, and as far as Toriyama-as-writing is concerned), he's not been training, because he'd not had any reason to. Throughout the early rumblings of this arc, we see that Vegeta broke his "promise" to give up fighting; we see Goku utterly busting his ass in the afterlife; we see Gohan lament that Goten and Trunks are going to pass him up if he's not careful. Amidst all of this, he's inconvenienced and set back by having to teach Videl how to fly and such. At the tournament proper, we see that, as expected, Gohan is unable to access the full depths of his abilities at will; it's made a point that he takes forever to go beyond the Super Saiyan wall for Kibito, by way of the crowd heckling him. And, as expected, he gets swiftly defeated by Boo.

Now, it's easy to see what's arguably being set up here: Gohan will go and train with Kaioshin, grow beyond his faults, and come to save the day at the eleventh hour. It's being set up a lot like what Goku does against Piccolo Daimao and the Saiyans. I can forgive people for thinking "this is exactly where Toriyama was going!", because in large part, it probably was. But remember what I said earlier about Toriyama, and humor, and irony. One of the pitfalls of common Boo arc (and Cell arc) critiques come from trying to look at the arc in isolation from those before it, rather than looking at the role it plays in the work on the whole, how it informs the complete story. Dragon Ball begins as a comedy, and after a certain point, becomes increasingly more and more serious. This reaches its apex, arguably, in the Cell arc. With the Boo arc, we go all the way around, back to comedy (albeit, without abandoning the seriousness).

The phrase "subverting expectations" is thrown around a lot in defense of writing decisions. While it's not a magic wand of exempting something from criticism, I think it's genuinely applicable here. Subverting expectations is another key component of comedy. Throughout these more serious stretches of the story, Toriyama develops certain patterns and habits. Goku gets taken out of commission, Goku gets stronger, and Goku comes back at the last minute to save the day. A new Super Saiyan transformation is unlocked, and it saves the day. The Genki Dama is an incredibly powerful attack, and it continually fails. All three of these are flipped on their head in the Boo arc. Indeed, Gohan has taken over for Goku, and so his role is clearly to come back and save the day in the end, after an initial defeat. However, since Toriyama views this arc as the end, he's bucking his own trends in all sorts of ways. Gohan doesn't do the expected and "obligatory" thing; he fails! The new Super Saiyan transformation doesn't amount to anything. Most importantly, the Genki Dama actually works!

Many will accuse this all of being handled "sloppily" and "without any grace", and I couldn't disagree more. Whether Toriyama intended to or not, he gave himself more than plenty of threads to work with that ended up coalescing in Goku taking the spotlight back from Gohan. For starters, Goku is absent for less than ten chapters before popping back in, and after that point he is, at bare minimum, on equal footing with Gohan as "the" protagonist, given the chapter title page presence, perspective focus, and the like. Secondly, the major arc that Goku goes through over the course of the broader story is one of increasing boredom as his strength begins to dwarf that of the other "fish". He takes increasingly problematic moves to ensure that he'll never be without a sporting challenge. When he dies and goes to the afterlife, he's arguably "made it"; he's found an outlet for this dangerous drive of his, because he can fight all of the old martial arts masters in heaven, to his heart's content. Instead, he's reintroduced to the story not too many chapters later. Moreover, those in the afterlife weren't really enough to challenge and satisfy him. Consider that plot thread re-opened. Because of this, we get to point three: he allows Vegeta to goad him into a deathmatch, and Majin Boo is released as a result. Fourth, we see what Gohan does in his training: not that much. While he gets a nifty ability to draw out all of his power at will (something that gets around his most glaring weakness as a result of not training for its own sake), he doesn't address his other major weakness: just not being a terribly gifted fighter. He doesn't get squirrely like Goku does when shit gets rough. He doesn't improvise. He gets mad, and either catches the other guy by surprise, or outright overpowers him. When Gohan wins fights, it's through barbarism, not tact and intelligence. In the ring, on the battlefield, that's Goku's thing.

In essence, while it would have been perfectly narratively coherent and fitting for Gohan to come back from the Kaioshin realm, defeat Boo, save the day, and carry on as normal, it's just as perfectly narratively coherent and fitting for Gohan to fail as a result of his chronic shirking of martial arts training due to his consistent lack of enjoying it for the sport, for Goku to come back, and for Goku and Vegeta (the ones who let this monster out in the first place) to be the ones to put Boo away. The way the battle concludes, with Goku wishing to fight Boo again as a good person, works in favor of both his and Gohan's arcs: Goku has taken on the strongest enemy as his pupil, the perfect outlet for his "poisonous" drive for testing and pushing his own limits; this gives him a successor, meaning that the student has become the master; lastly, this gives Gohan the Ultimate out, as he is no longer burdened by a role he is ultimately not fit for (due to his lack of being a martial artist for its own sake). When taking into account that this is a comedy story, and this subverts expectations and storytelling habits, the road Toriyama went with benefits the story by contributing the Boo arc's nature as the "punchline" to the preceding, and relatively serious, arcs' "set up". Moreover, when taking into account that this is a martial arts story that's been about Goku for the vast majority, this works as the ultimate cap on Goku's growth as a martial artist and allows the non-martial artist to retire from a role he's demonstrably ill-fit for.

Though, as a brief aside, I'd be super down for a martial arts story where Gohan does focus on the martial arts, but integrates it with his scholarly pursuits, and becomes someone like Toki from Fist of the North Star. Booknerd that he is, he could research the inner workings of how chi flows through the different meridians of the body, and like Toki, use these to influence peoples' chi to heal them. But, as cool as that would be, Toriyama doesn't "owe" it to us to ever tell that sort of story, nor does he owe it to Gohan.

Plus, it's not as if these three Saiyans are the only stars of the arc. Mr. Satan shows some incredible growth throughout. Introduced in the Cell arc as "that chump who took the Tenkaichi Budokai after it proved to be too small a stage for the protagonists" and "that asshole who stole the credit for defeating Cell", he becomes a genuine champion and hero. We see him being thoroughly humbled (again) during the Tenkaichi Budokai, by Trunks and #18. When he confronts Boo, after every trick he can think of fails, diplomacy actually works (until someone else fucks things up). At the climax, when the Genki Dama is used to defeat Boo, it's thanks to his egregious lying and glory-hogging that they're able to gather the energy needed to defeat Boo. There's a great mix of comedic irreverence with some subtly heartwarming personal growth going on, there.
The Great Saiyaman wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:07 amI liked Super...but I do think it definitely caters to the Goku/Vegeta team fan-favorite, to the extent that logical gaps are made in favor of that team up.
While I'd never call the original story necessarily the "Goku and Vegeta Show", as has been pointed out, it is "The Goku Show" before anything else. Moreover, Dragon Ball is a martial arts story, meaning that bitter martial arts rivalries are a big deal. Tenshinhan, Piccolo, and Vegeta are arguably Goku's most serious rivals throughout the story. Tenshinhan had his rematch with Goku, Piccolo had his rematch with Goku, and, prior to the Boo arc, Vegeta had not. So, going in, I think it was narratively-speaking, quite obvious, that Vegeta would get his during this arc. Given how paltry the competition in the afterlife was, I can't blame Goku, from the psychology of a martial arts prodigy and junkie, for taking Vegeta up on his (incredibly reckless and vile) offer for a rematch. Next, this match is what causes Boo to get released. Naturally, I think it makes narrative sense for them to be the ones to put the monster away.

While the Namek arc didn't really make their rivalry too big of a deal, the Cell arc certainly does. Once everyone begins to ruminate about how underwhelming the Super Saiyan state is against the Red Ribbon's monstrosities, a big deal is made about progressing it. Ultimately, the two full-blooded Saiyans take their respective sons into the Room of Spirit and Time, and devise their own means of taking the state to the next step. Naturally, Trunks follows his father's methods, and Gohan follow that of his. In a really subtle way, we see two distinct miniature martial arts "schools" develop, however fleetingly, from Goku and Vegeta. Each of the four take their own stab at fighting Cell with these new transformation techniques in tow. Despite doing their best, in their own ways, neither Goku nor Vegeta can defeat Cell. The two half-breeds, however, take their respective fathers' teachings to the next step. Trunks, in his folly, goes farther than Vegeta did...down the wrong path. Gohan, tapping into the well of power teased as early as the Saiyan arc, goes farther than Goku did...down the right path. Even when it's their sons doing the work, the rivalry in basic martial arts ideology between Goku and Vegeta is communicated to the reader. Eventually, in the Boo arc, when they take over as the stars of the show at the eleventh hour, they put their bitter differences aside, and cooperate to put away the monster that their petty nonsense unleashed onto the world.

I think it was necessary for Toriyama to do that in this arc, if he was going to do it at all, because this was the last arc. And I think that swerving on Gohan the way they did was handled way more graciously and seamlessly than people seem to believe (because, again, it was heavily seeded, deliberately or not, throughout the entire beginning of the arc), all while serving to buck long-established conventions, and without doing an ounce of disservice to Gohan.

Now, Super is a different story. While I don't think anything about the ending of the Boo arc necessitates that Vegeta then becomes the new Kurilin, or anything, I don't terribly mind that approach either. Again, Dragon Ball is a martial arts story, and seeing these formerly-bitter rivals become pupils together under a new master is as fitting a next step as anything else, if the story has to continue (which it doesn't). If I had things completely my way, I'd have liked Tenshinhan and Piccolo to come back into the fold, and have the story revolve around a rivalry between the four of them as pupils together. Tenshinhan and Piccolo have never taken Vegeta to task for the dishonor he had (indirectly) inflicted upon them. They'd been eclipsed by Goku after having a rematch, but so had Vegeta. Goku may have taken a sharp lead, but unlike Yamcha and Kurilin, they never retired: you can't catch those two not wearing a martial arts uniform. But don't mistake this for complaining, I'm just trying to explain that I don't think "The Goku and Vegeta Show" was some "obvious" next step in the story, as some may argue, but also that I don't really think there are any "logical gaps" made to tell this kind of sequel story. Every major plot beat is entirely befitting for a martial arts story, a Toriyama comedy, or both:
Dragon Ball Super wrote:Goku and Vegeta both display a degree of tenacity that impresses Beerus. Blooma bribes Whis with food to keep her family safe, which gives Vegeta the chance to bribe him with food in order to grow more as a martial artist (in the anime). The very food that Vegeta used as a bribe for martial arts training thrusts the two of them into a tournament against another universe. There, Vegeta takes a young Saiyan under his wing, and Goku shows off enough to piss off a Kaio from another universe. The highest god in the cosmos comes to say "we're doing this again, with more dudes". Said Kaio steals Goku's body, and fucks up Trunks' alternate timeline, naturally bringing both Goku and Vegeta into the fight. Thanks to Vegeta taking the aforementioned Saiyan under his wing, knowledge of the Super Saiyan state spreads among other Saiyans of that universe, causing a powerful berserker Super Saiyan to absolutely tear shit up at the Tournament of Power. Afterwards, Freeza is brought back to life, and proceeds to bring said berserker Super Saiyan's main-universe equivalent to Earth, who is sicced on Vegeta specifically, due to an old Saiyan grudge.
The story doesn't have to be about Goku and Vegeta, but it is, and I don't see anything wrong with any of the narrative through-lines that have made it so. And, for what it's worth, it's shaping up to largely be Freeza's story as well. He's brought back from Hell harboring a bitter grudge, and improves himself for the first time in his life. In his haste, he rushes to Earth, and tries to destroy it when backed into a corner. Returned to Hell, he image trains, and grows even more. He is recruited as a team member for the Tournament of Power, where, despite displaying some wavering loyalty, comes through at the very end, and against all odds displays some incredible teamwork. He's rewarded by getting his life back. While he continues to be an evil bastard, he's demonstrably more tactful in his grudge against Goku, not opting to destroy the planet when backed into a corner this time, leaving the film alive, leaving him more room to grow.

Really, I'm fine with "The Goku and Vegeta Show", so long as they're students together at "Whis University", because that's the larger context surrounding Vegeta being Goku's sidekick for this long. If things go how I predict (they won't; they never do), Freeza and Broli may be joining them in school, and I'm fine with that, too. I pray that it actually reaches something resembling a narrative conclusion sometime soon, though, so I can actually look at it as a whole, completed story. Because....
ruler9871 wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:06 pm I personally consider the Majin Buu & Goku Black (anime) sagas to be better than the Android/Cell arc overall, and the ToP (anime) & Baby sagas to be equal to it overall. Though I would say the Android/Cell saga is better than literally every other arc that came after it besides those 4.
I'm not even sure how people can really commit to comparing arcs of the original run to arcs of Super. Unlike Super, the original run is complete. We know how the story ends, and we've known for decades. It's been combed from front to back ad nauseam. You can engage the hermeneutic process of "first experience of the story: blind", "second experience of the story: knowing the ending, so you can see what bookends and what acts as set up", and "third experience: knowing what bookends and sets other things up, so you can go through it knowing the big picture, and seeing the real finer details". We can't do that with Super. Super just had a new "chapter", that leaves things too open ended (the film that ends with four big elephants in the room). The manga is in the midst of a new arc as we speak. The anime is all but confirmed to continue later this year.

Unlike the Cell arc, we don't know what role the events of the Black arc actually play in the larger narrative yet, and we won't know until after Super's ended, and we've been able to consume the entire thing several times. Nevermind the creative process behind Super compared to the original run, and the absurd ambiguity regarding which versions of which stories "count" (at best and most generously, I've been looking at the events as an on-paper hybrid of film-exclusive events, manga-exclusive events, and anime-exclusive events). Nevermind my earlier point of how limited in usefulness it actually is to demarcate a single stretch of chapters from a decade-sprawling non-stop serial from its surrounding context, even if we did, comparing that single stretch of chapters to a relatively way-more-planned-as-an-individual-entity story arc or film of Super, is essentially comparing apples to oranges.

That said, given the aforementioned creative process, I would say Super as a whole is categorically artistically inferior to the original run of the manga, meaning any arc from the former is, in my eyes, categorically weaker than any arc from the latter.

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Dr. Casey » Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:38 am

I don't think of Goku as being a completely static character. I think I expressed my thoughts about as well as I can in this post from 10 years ago, so I'll paste it here.
Me wrote:I agree that he's a very consistent character, but I wouldn't say he has no character development whatsoever. During the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai, whenever they air that silly movie about Mr. Satan defeating Cell... after it concludes, Goku laughs and gives a bemused, "It's amazing what happens when you let a fib go on this long, huh?" Picture 12 year old Goku saying that. Wouldn't it seem strangely sophisticated and even out of character coming from him? He'd probably just stare blankly and make a curious little sound, or at best give a completely earnest "That's not what happened..." I can't picture him giving the aforementioned quote as a child because it's too insightful, well-reasoned, and aware. He's a very consistent person, but I do think he develops mentally between childhood and adulthood.
Goku has a handful of very core traits that never change at any point throughout the series (drive to improve himself, general friendly nature and lighthearted attitude, you know the drill), but he does still change a great deal in a number of ways. He goes from a vapid, airheaded dimwit of a feral child who barely seems like he has a thought in his head, to someone with a moderate amount of social common sense that's capable of sometimes being a wise, philosophical thinker. He's also more playful and hyperactive as a child, to the point where Goku in his 20s and 30s can almost feel grim sometimes in comparison. He feels like a kid when he's a kid, and an adult when he's an adult.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Kid Buu » Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:11 pm

I enjoyed the Buu arc more than the Cell arc, so for me, nope.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Melkaniator » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:26 pm

Yes, Cell should've been the end, it was the perfect timing.

Buu arc sucked, main villain was a lamest version of cell (absorbing fighters to get stronger, using said characters' techniques) Goten, Trunks & Gotenks we're just a waste of time that replaced more important characters like Pikkoro & Kuririn (one of the only improvements of DBS is they stopped doing that) Gohan getting his power unlocked a 2nd time was lazy, SS3 looks ridiculous and was unnecessary, "Kid" Buu doesn't work as a main villain, he's just a rabid dog.

Gohan doesn't work as the main character, but he works as becoming Earth's new protector at the end.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by ABED » Tue Mar 12, 2019 10:15 pm

Melkaniator wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:26 pm "Kid" Buu doesn't work as a main villain, he's just a rabid dog.
He's less the main villain and more of the end villain. I think he works just fine because after having an endless string of Buu's that got smarter and more conniving, the final version being pure undiluted destruction felt like a fitting end point.
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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:21 pm

I think Dragon Ball's best stretch of consistently good story-telling is from Goku's second battle with King Piccolo to when Namek blows up. After that, for me personally, Dragon Ball becomes a serie of incredible peaks and troughs.

This graph generally represents my perceptive:

Image

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Re: Are Arcs/Sagas written and/or made post-Cell weaker than what came previously?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:51 am

I consider the Cell Arc to be the nadir of the series, so, really, there was nowhere to go but up. But at least was fun; with Cell, it felt like Freeza''s second and third forms all over again; a cyclical arc with no real progression for the majority of its existence.

I'll take Buu or Super over that any day.
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