Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Discussion regarding the entirety of the franchise in a general (meta) sense, including such aspects as: production, trends, merchandise, fan culture, and more.

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Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Bebi Hatchiyack » Wed Jul 17, 2019 9:55 pm

And by YOUR right direction I mean as Dragon Ball progress with its idea and lore do feel that Dragon Ball goes as you yourself planed long ago ?

For me and I told you that from my perspective of my 14 years old self when I saw Dragon Ball ended at Majin Buu where we have yet to discover the realm of the Gods I felt a bit hungry I wanted to ate more of battle that reach Galactic level. So for me from this day back in 1998 (French watcher of DB) I felt unsatisfied and wanted more.

Then come Dragon Ball GT where I got my share of deception because we were still at the same level of battle that we've left with Majin Buu. True Bebi and all the concept behind is amazing because the Tusful weren't that good anymore.Sure Saiyan eliminated them but Tsuful weren't cool with Saiyan either treating Saiyan like shit was not a good idea. Also I loved some concept like the Dragon Ball that can turn evil if we are making too much of good wishes. The SSJ4 is wholesome though not so much regarding the colour scheme.

Dragon Ball GT to summarize left me hang and not satisfied despite some good idea.

AFTER GT, Oh boy what a desert walk for someone who discover Dragon Ball almost like the Japanese people (Dragon Ball started in France the 2nd of march 1988) we almost Got everything up to GT without much interuption. So unlike you citizen of America my wait for more and new Dragon Ball stuff was longer.

During this time I thought of many thing, creating stuff in my mind like what if there is more than God of Creation that you have God of Death ? God of War ? God of Destruction a Pantheon of God like in Greek culture. Or what if the magi that Babidi use is power by a type of Ki totally different that one use the normal guy. I created a lot of stuff.

And now with Dragon Ball Super that has ended I can say that Dragon Ball got almost into MY right Direction for things I expected to see in the Franchise. I got more of the Gods with even better God of Destruction Beerus, The Angel that got along with GoD and Zen'Oh. I got another type of Ki creating some branching within the Super Saiyan Transformation like a Tree with each branch being specialized. I got my antagoniste that was Good but turned Evil. I got character with exotic power like Hit or Ganos. I got Android 21 that is a really a Good female character.

But Mostly I got an expansion of the scale of the Universe of Dragon Ball that I wasn't expecting dude that 12 Universe concept is good. A lil bummer though that wasn't much exploited (except in Super Dragon Ball Heroes). Speaking of Heroes KANBA (I use this spelling and not Cumber) is freaking awesome I love him, Fuu is an adorkable goofball and damn SHROOM make him a God of Death already with its own power and agenda.

As you see for me Dragon Ball is heading into the right direction because it gives me what I expect. But enough about me what about you ? Does Dragon Ball give you your right expectation or are you left down ? Explain.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by omegacwa » Thu Jul 18, 2019 7:49 am

For the most part I would say I'm happy with how Dragon Ball is proceeding, although I don't personally like the return of Broly (I enjoyed the movie despite that).

Although Dragon Ball, is, ultimately, "the Goku show", I personally wish that Toriyama or Toei would spend something like 3-10 episodes with other characters as the focus. Kind of like a mini-arc. Not everything has to be "the universe is at stake! Only Goku can do it!"

Just a random example of what I would do is just have a couple episodes where Tien, Krillin, and Yamcha battle a small invading force from another planet who are looking to steal something from earth or some other reason, or something similar to Dr. Wheelo from movie 2. You could give them little character moments and time to shine as martial artists without Goku or Vegeta or whoever getting involved.

Or you could have Vegeta go to Sadala and there be a plot where he ends up fighting for the crown against a corrupt King, ends up realizing that he never truly wanted the throne and passes it onto a worthy successor (Cabba? Some character yet to be introduced?).

These ideas are not fully fleshed out, obviously, but it's just my personal opinion of what I wouldn't mind seeing, in addition to the standard "save the universe plot starring Goku".

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by KBABZ » Thu Jul 18, 2019 8:17 am

I don't really have a "direction" I want them to go in as I don't want to impose personal guidelines like that, but I do wish we have a little bit more of an introspective angle where we got to explore the characters a bit more. I also liked the world tour feel of the early days before the 23rd Tournament, but the abilities of the characters nowadays negates a lot of that from working.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Vijay » Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:00 am

As rewatching DB~DBZ....yeah. I pretty much liked Toriyama's approach...or direction

Kinda like you friend, I was hoping for God, Kaioshin lore & Madoushi/Demonic lore expansion.

Super was....atrocious at best. Wasnt my liking

GT was....meh. While I liked its approach of going full-scale Universe expanding....it had tons of potential, yet never really tapped em. I liked planet M2 & the one Goku fought Ledgic as well as Giant who Goku Kamehameha'd his tooth😂😂😂

Besides that, GT wasnt going in my expected direction. My direction meaning....in lore/world building etc

Basically, just living with DB & Z lol. To say I like Super wud be a lie tbh....

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by ABED » Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:02 am

No, nor do I think it's a good thing for fans to have a direction they want the story to go in. The only direction I would like to see it go in is towards a finale.

As for lore and world building, no, I don't have a direction on that as it's boring.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by JulieYBM » Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:38 am

The cool thing about Dragon Ball is that it can completely surpass my expectations all the time. Super has been such a blessing in that regard.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by SupremeKai25 » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:17 am

I liked Super mainly because of Zamasu and the arc/lore surrounding him. I have always been more of a "villain fan", I like to root for the villain of the story because I usually find them more interesting and alluring, we could say, than the goody goody two shoes. Zamasu is a plus for me because he isn't just a great threat, but a villain who also had intriguining motivations and a cool gimmick (immortality).

For the future I'd like if Dragon Ball had more villains like Zamasu, who are still evil, but at least you can see where they're coming from, at least you understand their motivations, even if you might personally disagree with them. After Zamasu, I've seen a lot of people asking for the Makaioshins to be introduced in Super. If they are, I want them to have understandable reasons. Maybe they could hate the Gods because they dumped them at birth out of prejudice. They shouldn't just be evil guys who want to destroy everything because they are evil.

I'm not saying that the Dragon Ball villains should suddenly become as complex as Naruto villains, but I'd rather not have a generic bad guy like Boo. I haven't been keeping up with the manga so I don't know how this Moro is but I have the impression that he is just another bad guy who does evil things just for the lulz.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Rory » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:24 am

Not in my right direction, no. Since Dragon Ball was able to sit in the public conscious for years before rebooting, I feel it helped let pop-culture massively influence what's relevant in the continuation of the series, which has helped it become something of a parody of itself.
Because of this we don't really see anything new, we just see old ideas given a new coat of paint (almost literally with transformations).
It really infects nearly every aspect of the series at this point, which feels completely stagnant now. At the end of each major arc in the manga something big had happened, something had changed in the characters, new characters were now integrated into the core cast, or something had changed within the story that gave the series a new focus.
At this point it feels like it's just a constant reset to the status quo at the end of each arc. The closest thing to a positive the new series has given us are Beerus and Whis, but even with them, that's just a new status quo to reset to.
ABED wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:02 am The only direction I would like to see it go in is towards a finale.
tl;dr, this.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by ABED » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:26 am

Other than Gohan, who's the goody two shoes in DB?
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Dbzfan94 » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:27 am

ABED wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:02 am The only direction I would like to see it go in is towards a finale.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts as well.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by omegacwa » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:30 am

Rory wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:24 am At the end of each major arc in the manga something big had happened, something had changed in the characters, new characters were now integrated into the core cast, or something had changed within the story that gave the series a new focus.
At this point it feels like it's just a constant reset to the status quo at the end of each arc. The closest thing to a positive the new series has given us are Beerus and Whis, but even with them, that's just a new status quo to reset to.
This is almost 100% the fault of adhering to the concept of not passing the time skip between Buu and the EoZ.

I personally hope that the Moro stuff leads up to the EoZ and the introduction of Uub and then we can move on to truly "new" stuff that has a lasting impression.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Soppa Saia People » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:44 am

ABED wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:02 am No, nor do I think it's a good thing for fans to have a direction they want the story to go in. The only direction I would like to see it go in is towards a finale.
yeah pretty much. i'm not like mad GT and Super and whatever exist because at the end of the day there very easy to ignore, other people get enjoyment out of them (hell i straight up like GT), and the original manga will still there, but still i just wish it would end. i just don't see any reason too keep the franchise going.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Bebi Hatchiyack » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:58 am

omegacwa wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 7:49 amAlthough Dragon Ball, is, ultimately, "the Goku show", I personally wish that Toriyama or Toei would spend something like 3-10 episodes with other characters as the focus. Kind of like a mini-arc. Not everything has to be "the universe is at stake! Only Goku can do it!"
About that I think Toei could have an help by Sunrise, Sunrise being held by Bandai Namco Holdings I think it would be a good idea to have Sunrise do Spin Off serie for Dragon Ball where Toei focus on the main dish.
KBABZ wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 8:17 am I don't really have a "direction" I want them to go in as I don't want to impose personal guidelines like that, but I do wish we have a little bit more of an introspective angle where we got to explore the characters a bit more. I also liked the world tour feel of the early days before the 23rd Tournament, but the abilities of the characters nowadays negates a lot of that from working.
I don't think it's wrong to "impose personal guidelines" because that means as a fan you care about the direction of the serie and its well being, It's ok to have expectation and wanting out of something you like. What is not okay and that's what you mean ? Is to harrass a production team to force them to go in your direction. Yup that's a thing to not do.
ABED wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:02 amAs for lore and world building, no, I don't have a direction on that as it's boring.
I can't say that I agree with you, because you need to build a bits of a world to make your story believable. Even the simpliest of story like Garfield has a world build around them that help the reader to grabs the reality of our favourite cat who love lasagna. It's even more true in novel how you can build a story if you don't describ the place where the character are or what they are doing ?

For Lore I can understand why some people think it's boring but world building nope it's essential to a story.
Rory wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:24 am Not in my right direction, no. Since Dragon Ball was able to sit in the public conscious for years before rebooting.
Where do you see a reboot ? I don't have the same feeling about this statment care to explain what you mean by rebooting ?
Soppa Saia People wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:44 amI just don't see any reason too keep the franchise going.
I can give you a lot of reason as to why I want the serie to keep going on.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:07 am

Like ABED, I neither feel that Dragon Ball necessarily needs to or should go in the direction that I personally choose. And also like ABED, I feel very strongly it should be moving in a direction that causes it to end... again. But barring that, limiting this to only ask if Dragon Ball has moved in a direction I can get on board with, the answer is still a very resounding "no."

To briefly cover the idea of it needing to end, I'm wary any time a decisively ended series comes back after such a long time. And while certain franchises that are low on continuity, low on the passage of time, and subsist more on jokes than an overarching storyline (Scooby-Doo, Family Guy, The Simpsons) have the capacity to go on for much, much longer, Dragon Ball is not structured in a way that causes that to work. It's a serialized narrative. Time very saliently exists, which is one of the things that drew me to the franchise in the first place. And yet modern Dragon Ball seems to want little more than to dig in its heels and stay in one place for as long as it can possibly milk merchandising. It continually rehashes ideas, character beats, and even long-removed or continuity-displaced characters. It's been very painful to watch a series I love sink to this level of fan pandering and fear of change.

However, there is more to it than that, and for it, you'll have to indulge me while I return to the roots of my fandom. When I was introduced to Dragon Ball, it was through the reruns of American seasons 1 and 2 of Dragon Ball Z on Toonami. That was all we had. My friend alerted me to his recollection of an earlier Dragon Ball, and I picked up all 13 episodes of that from the FUNimation store. Another friend might have had an issue of the Viz manga. Eventually we got season 3. But over time, I came to find out there was much, much more to the franchise than that. And once Internet became more widespread, so did my knowledge but in bits and pieces, some of it accurate, some of it not. Eventually, it led me to Curtis Hoffmann's old manga summaries, and that's where I finally got the overall picture of Dragon Ball's story (except for much of The Cell Arc since he never summarized a lot of that material). And while I was excited to know what happened after the point where we in America were currently stopped, it was really the stuff that came before that intrigued me, that sparked my imagination. I preferred the tone, the greater diversity of adventures and conflict, the characters, the history that had only ever been hinted to me before. I feel that Dragon Ball has long since lost any meaningful ability to continue forward. The stakes have long since gotten so high that everyone's "feats" have been practically indistinguishable from previous stories for quite a long time. And the characters' powers have so increased that there's really very little that can challenge them aside from other big strong guy that needs to be punched. And while that's always been the primary focus of Dragon Ball, there was a time when there was more to it than that. There was a time when non-combatant shapeshifters could turn the tide of a conflict; when Goku could be stuck in a location if he lost his magic cloud; when having to deliver milk, scale a tower, navigate a maze, or catch a monkey were legitimate obstacles. What I'm about to say opens the conversation up in a totally different direction, so I'm not going to elaborate, but I think, among other things, it was a huge mistake to make self-propelled flying a practical means of long-distance transportation and for ki-sensing to become so attuned as to be able to sense a strong fight from anywhere on the planet. That just limits things so much. But, hey. Both of those were introduced in The Saiyan Arc, which is the last arc I think was consistently strong.

With its shift to such large-scale conflicts that have ultimately backed the series into a repetitive corner, and fights that consists of so many back-and-forth power-ups, Dragon Ball has long since been moving in a direction I do not care for. However, the Freeza, Cell, and Boo Arcs have enough Toriyama charm, a large amount of redeeming and interesting elements, and more than satisfactory forward momentum and novelty to make them worthy additions to the franchise. I never claim that Dragon Ball Super pioneered all the elements that make bad Dragon Ball. They were all there before. Super just continued them and took them to their logical extreme. Combining that with its lack of progression and lack of interest in telling a cohesive story is what makes it such a disappointment.

I will address the god stuff in particular, though, before I sign off. I do think Zeno is a good character/are good characters. There's a lot of fun to be had with that, had the Tournament of Power not descended into such a boring chore to watch. But I think the god characters are most symptomatic of the problem I addressed earlier about Dragon Ball being backed into a corner with nowhere to go. Even Toriyama has jokingly admitted that when he runs out of places to go, he just adds another tier of gods. It has long since become ridiculous, and they are almost all so nebulous in their abilities and responsibilities that they all might as well be the same thing (Beerus is a nice exception, but he and Whis have become so overused that their shtick has long since gotten old). Hopefully this is the end of the line, as he has introduced a character who is literally "lord of all." But I wouldn't put it past Toriyama to somehow work around that. After all, God was originally just God, not "God of Earth" or "random Namekian child with no qualifications or experience, but boy can he make Dragon Balls." Kaio was said to be the god above all other gods until suddenly, in immediate succession, he was said to have not only three counterparts, not only a direct superior, but an entire lineage above that superior. And then, before that story arc was even out, another tier was put on top of even that. Please. No more gods.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by SupremeKai25 » Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:11 am

ABED wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:26 am Other than Gohan, who's the goody two shoes in DB?
You're right, a more appropriate term to describe people like Goku is Lawful Stupid.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by ABED » Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:23 am

I can't say that I agree with you, because you need to build a bits of a world to make your story believable.
Bits being the important word. A story should feel like there's a world outside of the frame, but not so much that it's distracting to the story. Story comes first. Let's not let the tail wag the dog.
if you don't describ the place where the character are or what they are doing ?
That's not worldbuilding. That's story, specifically description. World building is stuff like hierarchies and socio-political structures.

To give an example of something not Dragon Ball, the movie Yesterday is about a world where people didn't know about The Beatles except for one man. He uses their music to make himself a star. There's some interesting questions that arise out of that sort of world, like what does pop culture look like without them. What effect would that have on The Rolling Stones? What would music look like without The Beatles and their direct and indirect influences? The movie isn't really about that. It's about the main character's inner conflict having in effect plagarizing their music. Unfortunately, far too many critics have been basing their opinion because the film doesn't deal with the former questions, but deals mostly with the latter.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by omegacwa » Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:29 am

Gaffer Tape wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:07 am
Sorry, I didn't want to create a wall of text so I just cut out your comment.

Anyway, I agree to a certain extent that things have gotten out of hand with power ups and what not. Remember when SSJ was supposed to be the end all be all. It could have been, and once the characters reached it, it then returned to just skill vs skill, but instead we got SSJ2 and SSJ3 and so on.

I personally wish the fights became about skill again and less about raising your power to the maximum, which on paper makes no sense as in reality the world's strongest man would get killed in a fight by the UFC heavyweight champion.

This all stems back to the creation of power levels. If that had never happened, and Raditz was just insanely skilled from "years of fighting 100's of different alien races" and Vegeta and Nappa were just more experienced than that, it would have been a better narrative. Freeza could be the greatest fighter ever because of his incredible power as a galactic dictator and had all the greatest teachers. Then when you get to Cell, you could say that instead of him being built from the DNA of the greatest fighters he was built from the consciousness of the greatest fighters, hence making him the most skilled fighter they've ever faced because he knows every move the Z fighters could possibly think to do.

Then with Buu you could leave him mostly alone because he's just an insane, dangerous monster with near infinite stamina and regeneration.

Then, with power levels left out of the equation, you could still have training that meant something, like climbing Karin Tower.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Soppa Saia People » Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:31 am

Gaffer Tape wrote: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:07 am Eventually, it led me to Curtis Hoffmann's old manga summaries, and that's where I finally got the overall picture of Dragon Ball's story (except for much of The Cell Arc since he never summarized a lot of that material). And while I was excited to know what happened after the point where we in America were currently stopped, it was really the stuff that came before that intrigued me, that sparked my imagination. I preferred the tone, the greater diversity of adventures and conflict, the characters, the history that had only ever been hinted to me before. I feel that Dragon Ball has long since lost any meaningful ability to continue forward. The stakes have long since gotten so high that everyone's "feats" have been practically indistinguishable from previous stories for quite a long time. And the characters' powers have so increased that there's really very little that can challenge them aside from other big strong guy that needs to be punched. And while that's always been the primary focus of Dragon Ball, there was a time when there was more to it than that. There was a time when non-combatant shapeshifters could turn the tide of a conflict; when Goku could be stuck in a location if he lost his magic cloud; when having to deliver milk, scale a tower, navigate a maze, or catch a monkey were legitimate obstacles. What I'm about to say opens the conversation up in a totally different direction, so I'm not going to elaborate, but I think, among other things, it was a huge mistake to make self-propelled flying a practical means of long-distance transportation and for ki-sensing to become so attuned as to be able to sense a strong fight from anywhere on the planet. That just limits things so much. But, hey. Both of those were introduced in The Saiyan Arc, which is the last arc I think was consistently strong.
yeah this is the other thing for me is that well, i don't really think the series has been going in a direction i like since the 23rd budokai. don't get me wrong, i love the saiyan arc, and this year i've been watching the Z anime all the way through for the first time and have had a ton of fun with all the material, but it really is just so much less interesting than the pre saiyan arc stuff. the conflict's are so much more interesting and organic, the world is so much fun and like different from our world, i much prefer the rounder artstyle, it just used too be such a fun series, and so much of that got lost when the characters go to namek.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by ABED » Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:36 am

I personally wish the fights became about skill again and less about raising your power to the maximum, which on paper makes no sense as in reality the world's strongest man would get killed in a fight by the UFC heavyweight champion.
DB was never our world. How the fights go in DB make sense in its world.
This all stems back to the creation of power levels
It really doesn't. It's a paradigm that goes back well before the Saiyan arc. And the power levels as a specific number being some meaningful way to quantify fighting skill was subverted from almost the beginning. Raditz dies in part because he relied too heavily on the scouter readings. It became a much bigger deal because nerds love to turn stuff into math problems where things are quantifiable.

I get your point, though. When who wins a fight mainly comes down to who's stronger, it's a lot less interesting, but in the Saiyan arc, the strongest didn't win. Goku was broken and it took everyone's best to just BARELY eek out a victory Vegeta who was the strongest.
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Re: Does Dragon Ball as a Franchise goes in your right Direction ?

Post by Lord Beerus » Thu Jul 18, 2019 5:37 pm

No.

I don't mind the idea of new stories in Dragon Ball, but I feel the genuine sense of progression has been lost for the most part. It feels like everything has been stopped in its place. The lack of any significant psychical growth for Goten and Trunks epitomise this current stagnation in storytelling Dragon Ball is going though. And all of this ultimately stems from the complacency of Toriyama, Toei and Toyotaro unwillingness to have any major narrative beyond arguably the most uneventful and "safe" time period of the original story.

Honestly, if you're not going to do anything progressive, wholesome or even off-handily whimsical and charming with Dragon Ball's story, just end it.

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