Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

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Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by WittyUsername » Mon Nov 18, 2019 6:40 pm

I know that Minus is old news, but this is something that only gets more and more confusing to me as time goes on. Dragon Ball Minus does not feel like it was written by Akira Toriyama. It’s far too sentimental and straight-faced for something written by him. That’s not to say that the original manga didn’t have its more serious moments, but there was still a wacky sort of irreverence to it that made it clear that serious stories with real human emotions aren’t really Toriyama’s thing.

The entire crux of the story is that Goku’s parents love him so much that they decided to throw away their own chance at survival for his sake, which completely contradicts what we were originally told in the manga. It retroactively paints a much more flattering depiction of Goku’s backstory and vaguely implies that Goku being the one to ensure Freeza’s (initial) downfall was fate all along, rather than a convenient accident. It suggests that rather than being a nobody who was cast aside like trash, Goku was a special Saiyan who was lucky to have parents who loved him so much.

Also, I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but as others have pointed out, Goku’s revised backstory bears a pretty unmistakeable similarity to Superman (and Moses, I suppose). That strikes me as pretty ironic, since Toriyama has made it clear that he does not consider Goku to be a heroic character.

Does anyone else have a really difficult time wrapping their head around the fact that Akira Toriyama of all people wrote the story?

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by Fionordequester » Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:22 am

Nah, Toriyama's always had moments of that level of seriousness. Vegeta's Final Atonement, for example...
Kataphrut wrote:It's a bit of a Boy Who Cried Wolf situation to me...Basically, the boy shouldn't have cried wolf when the wolves just wanted to Go See Yamcha. If not, they might have gotten some help when the wolves came back to Make the Donuts.
Chuquita wrote:I liken Gokû Black to "guy can't stand his job, so instead of quitting and finding a job he likes, he instead sets fire not only to his workplace so he doesn't have to work there, but tries setting fire to every store in the franchise of that company".

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by dbgtFO » Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:28 am

I feel like getting old and having kids made him more sentimental and thus we ended up with this revised wholesome version of Goku's send off to Earth.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by mute_proxy » Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:44 am

It very much feels like written by post neko majin Toriyama

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by KBABZ » Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:48 am

IMO it's similar to how George Lucas expanded the Star Wars universe by returning to it decades later with the Prequels. Both Lucas and Toriyama have made odd contributions to their older, most prolific work, like Kaioshin coming from apples, S Cells, Minus and more. It seems to be a running thing really that you get when a creator gets older and returns to a finished work.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by Fionordequester » Tue Nov 19, 2019 4:47 am

Which we should all be thankful for, I think.

A creator in the present is always gonna be different from how they were 2 decades ago, which means different kinds of stories. That's never a bad thing, IMO.

You like the new stories, then you've got yet more fun discussion. You DON'T like the new stories, then they don't need to be part of "your canon".
Kataphrut wrote:It's a bit of a Boy Who Cried Wolf situation to me...Basically, the boy shouldn't have cried wolf when the wolves just wanted to Go See Yamcha. If not, they might have gotten some help when the wolves came back to Make the Donuts.
Chuquita wrote:I liken Gokû Black to "guy can't stand his job, so instead of quitting and finding a job he likes, he instead sets fire not only to his workplace so he doesn't have to work there, but tries setting fire to every store in the franchise of that company".

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by funrush » Tue Nov 19, 2019 11:53 pm

Is it out of character considering the previous depictions of Saiyans as heartless war-loving mercenaries? Yes.

But that doesn't necessarily make it unlike Toriyama. It's been decades since he originally came up with the Saiyans and this is just how he wants to write them now I guess.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 2:32 pm

Because it's written by a man who no longer has any passion for his story.
fadeddreams5 wrote:
DBZGTKOSDH wrote:... Haven't we already gotten these in GT? Goku dies, the DBs go away, and the Namekian DBs most likely won't be used again because of the Evil Dragons.
Goku didn't die in GT. The show sucked him off so much, it was impossible to keep him in the world of the living, so he ascended beyond mortality.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:31 am I'm just about done with the concept of reboots and making shows that were products of their time and impactful "new and sexy" and in line with modern tastes and sensibilities. Let stuff stay in their era and give today's kids their own shit to watch.

I always side eye the people who say "Now my kids/today's kids can experience what I did as a child!" Nigga, who gives a fuck about your childhood? You're an adult now and it was at least 15 years ago. Let the kids have their own experience instead of picking at a corpse.

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Re: Does Dragon Ball Minus seem unlike Toriyama to anyone else?

Post by Dr. Casey » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:51 pm

Fionordequester wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 4:47 amA creator in the present is always gonna be different from how they were 2 decades ago, which means different kinds of stories.
Yep, this. People change. Some people might find this particular example of change disappointing (I wouldn't know because I've never read Dragon Ball Minus), but it's not at all unprecedented for authors to change with a 19 year gap in time. With the story I wrote, the original (which I wrote from the ages of 19-24) and the sequel (29-31) definitely show some changes in my person, and there's only five years separating the end of the original series from the beginning of the sequel series.
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