DB's Revival

[Matches Malone]

I kind of always wanted Dragon Ball to have a mainstay villain, the same way comic books do, and Frieza is the most appropriate character to fill that role.

DB isn't a comic, nor is Freeza more appropriate than anyone else taking such a role. He wasn't introduced until the manga's 8th arc and once he was killed things moved away from him just as they always have. He was no different than anyone else introduced before or after him. DB isn't a story that's meant to have a revolving door of villains, each villain is meant to have a specific arc and role in the larger story and once said role is fulfilled, things move onto something else.

Because I don't have it in Dragon Ball.

DB isn't a comic. The purpose of revolving doors of villains is to keep things going forever and in a permanent status quo. DB, and manga in general, aren't written to go on forever, they're written with the intent on moving through different stages of the characters lives and eventually reaching a conclusion, the complete opposite of comics. Freeza was nothing more than a stage in the characters lives that should've been left behind like the other stages.

Freeza is the most iconic villain in the franchise, so keeping him around seems like an obvious attempt at maintaining the familiar elements of the series.

The familiar elements of DB is what's hurting this revival the most as it's preventing them from moving onto new things.

[Melee_Sovereign]

I guess, but when villains go from truly villainous to little more than a pimple on someone's ass, it annoys me. Don't get me wrong, there are amusing moments in Broly, but I think there are better things to do than reduce Freeza to Skeletor.

He may not stay that way you know. He may go back to being truly villainous. Him currently being a minor annoyance, could even be something they're doing on purpose as a way to hit us with a surprise later.

As a side note, both Frieza and Skeletor shoot finger beams, so they already have plenty in common.

[ABED]

I guess, but when villains go from truly villainous to little more than a pimple on someone's ass, it annoys me. Don't get me wrong, there are amusing moments in Broly, but I think there are better things to do than reduce Freeza to Skeletor.

He may not stay that way you know. He may go back to being truly villainous. Him currently being a minor annoyance, could even be something they're doing on purpose as a way to hit us with a surprise later.

As a side note, both Frieza and Skeletor shoot finger beams, so they already have plenty in common.

The toothpaste is out of the bottle. There's no going back to him being the ultimate evil. He's lost too many times for that.

Matches Malone is spot on about the difference between DB's villains and supervillains.

Anyway, there's a pretty great (at least the idea) reversal at the heart of the Zamasu arc. Trunks came back to the past to find a way to stop the Cyborgs who destroyed his world. He saves Goku's life. Ultimately it ended up saving his timeline, but ended up opening his world up to an even bigger threat. I love that when stories have something occur as a direct consequence of a previous action even if that action was performed to aid the protagonist. Reversals are a great tool in a writer's tool chest.

[Skar]

He may not stay that way you know. He may go back to being truly villainous. Him currently being a minor annoyance, could even be something they're doing on purpose as a way to hit us with a surprise later.

Honestly I think it's the opposite and they're trying to make Freeza less villainous as a way to keep him around. Freeza was killed off in his previous attempts at revenge because he deemed a threat that wouldn't change but he gets spared at the end of DBS: Broly. He no longer wants immortality and instead one of the most non-threatening wishes out of any villain.

In RoF, Jaco rushed to Earth to warn them about Freeza but the Galactic Patrol doesn't seem to aware that he's been resurrected this time around. In this current manga saga, Moro is traveling the universe eating up planet and hasn't run into what's left of Freeza's army. Freeza must be keeping to himself if the Galactic Patrol and Moro's gang haven't noticed him yet. I don't know what Toriyama had planned for Freeza but I think it's very unlikely Toriyama intends for him to ever be a major threat again.

[SupremeKai25]

I guess, but when villains go from truly villainous to little more than a pimple on someone's ass, it annoys me. Don't get me wrong, there are amusing moments in Broly, but I think there are better things to do than reduce Freeza to Skeletor.

He may not stay that way you know. He may go back to being truly villainous. Him currently being a minor annoyance, could even be something they're doing on purpose as a way to hit us with a surprise later.

As a side note, both Frieza and Skeletor shoot finger beams, so they already have plenty in common.

The toothpaste is out of the bottle. There's no going back to him being the ultimate evil. He's lost too many times for that.

Matches Malone is spot on about the difference between DB's villains and supervillains.

Anyway, there's a pretty great (at least the idea) reversal at the heart of the Zamasu arc. Trunks came back to the past to find a way to stop the Cyborgs who destroyed his world. He saves Goku's life. Ultimately it ended up saving his timeline, but ended up opening his world up to an even bigger threat. I love that when stories have something occur as a direct consequence of a previous action even if that action was performed to aid the protagonist. Reversals are a great tool in a writer's tool chest.

That is one of my favourite aspects of the Future Trunks arc. It's also a nice way to tie Super with Z (complete with flashbacks!). Honestly this opened up an interesting moral dilemma for me. Zamasu claims that Trunks committed a sin by time travelling, and he is right. Time travel is strictly forbidden by the laws of the Gods, even Destroyers can't time travel, and the Supreme Kais can only time travel to the future. Trunks, a mortal, time travelled to the past, and in doing so he shattered reality itself. Even Gowasu agreed with Zamasu that he was a fool to do so. At the same time, you can't blame Trunks. There really was no other way to defeat the Androids. So you're left with this dilemma. Was Trunks right to time travel, when he shattered reality itself just to save one planet? Or are Zamasu and the Kais too ruthless and pragmatic?

Zamasu goes straight to the point here. He confronts Trunks with a cold hard fact. If he never time travelled, there would've never been Goku Black or an alliance of Zamases across time. The warping Trunks caused motivated him to begin his Project Zero Mortals and allowed him to find a powerful immortal partner. So Super and Z are indeed closely linked in this arc, and Trunks, albeit unknowingly, played a big role in his world's doom (Trunks also never tries to defend himself, he just accepts he committed a sin and doesn't care, because he was doing what he thought was best for his world).

[Koitsukai]

I don't understand some of the hate on/to this thread, or missing the point of it when it's pretty clear.

Anyway, did you also read the manga? what are your thoughts on it? how do you feel about the several differences between anime and manga?

I loved BoG and Broly, hated RoF aside of the slice of life stuff, I can't stand anything after Freeza showed up, except the new forms. The art seemed weird/bad to me as well, which was corrected before the ToP.
Also didn't mind the movie retelling, enjoyed the U6 arc(liked more the manga's take), the FT arc except for how it ended, and the ToP, specially the last 10 episodes.

What are your opinions on each arc?

[ABED]

I haven't read the Super manga. Maybe one day. I've just finished the Zamasu arc. The time travel stuff is even more convoluted than the Cell arc, but it always is. Zamasu is one of the better antagonists in DB. The arc is derivative, but still interesting. The Genki Dama sword doesn't make much logical sense, but works thematically. Zamasu's problem is his hatred for humans whom he deems evil and barbaric, so it's fitting that the world works together to finish him off.

The retellings weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. The Golden Freeza arc the same as the movie - awful. The length just makes it worse, but I was never high on it to begin with.

I really enjoyed the U6 vs. U7 tournament. It was delightful and I just want to give Monaka a hug.

I'm not the biggest fan of slice of life episodes, but so far they're better than the driving episode. I found the episode where everyone wants to make a wish and Shen Long's time limit runs out right before Goku can make his wish to bring back Kaio. It's fun. It was also fun seeing Vegeta talk about gag manga logic. It works better at this point in his development than if they did it when he was a villain or anti-hero. Also, I think people are exaggerating that Goku has been Flanderized.

Haven't gotten to the Tournament of Power arc but I'll be done with Super at this rate by next week. I'm surprised I'm enjoying it as much as I am (I'd put this above GT, but well below DB/DBZ), but still want to reiterate that if we never got this revival, I would've felt DB was complete.

[Melee_Sovereign]

The toothpaste is out of the bottle. There's no going back to him being the ultimate evil. He's lost too many times for that.

I dunno why you think of all these things in terms of absolutes. Of course he can go back to being truly villainous. Creative writing has no limits.

He essentially still is truly villainous, he's just currently not that threatening. Vegeta is still worried about him, and is currently the main reason he still wants to train to get stronger. And speaking of Vegeta, I still feel like he hasn't had his proper revenge against Frieza. He almost had it in the RoF arc, but it was sort of robbed from him. That's a story that can still happen, and I think should happen.

[emperior]

Wait you still had not seen or read all of Super?
You are in for some excellent episodes for the next arc.

Super only gets better through time, especially quality wise when speaking about the anime. The retellings are mosty a waste of time and fillers are hit or miss.
Between the anime and manga there’s a good product. They each do some stuff better than the other, depending on taste, but if you find the anime to be too slowly paced then I would suggest you to first read all the manga, even if you have to start from the beginning (it skims through BoG fast and skips RoF).

But honestly, Super is far, far above GT. GT apart from a handful of episodes is abysmal.

Now I don’t get why you created this thread in the first place if you only got to around episode 70 though.

[Melee_Sovereign]

Wait you still had not seen or read all of Super?
You are in for some excellent episodes for the next arc.

Super only gets better through time, especially quality wise when speaking about the anime. The retellings are mosty a waste of time and fillers are hit or miss.
Between the anime and manga there’s a good product. They each do some stuff better than the other, depending on taste, but if you find the anime to be too slowly paced then I would suggest you to first read all the manga, even if you have to start from the beginning (it skims through BoG fast and skips RoF).

But honestly, Super is far, far above GT. GT apart from a handful of episodes is abysmal.

Now I don’t get why you created this thread in the first place if you only got to around episode 70 though.

I haven't read the Super manga either. I've seen the entire anime though in both English and Japanese.

I've also never finished GT. I got up to episode 15 or whatever, but I couldn't stand it. So by that experience, I'd put Super far above GT. I feel like I'm only interested in canon Dragon Ball. I don't know the Xenoverse storyline either, and I've barely seen any of Heroes.

For the manga, I'm thinking about skipping right to the Moro arc since that's the only arc that doesn't (yet?) have an anime version.

[90sDBZ]

I'll always say that for any revival/sequel/reboot or the like, that they can be ignored by those who don't like them. If you're someone who wanted Goku leaving with Uub to remain the ending, then you need only stop watching at that point.

I'm getting close to the end of Super myself, and have seen Broly. I thought the retellings were okay, but felt like the battles were too bogged down with repetitive dialogue, like Goku banging on about how strong Beerus was. Every time you think that fight is about to really get going, it goes into dialogue instead, which is why I liked the movie version more.

The slice of life episodes are mostly very enjoyable, and the Champa arc had some good moments too. I thought the Black arc was excellent at times, although it got a bit repetitive in places, and the ending was strange and felt too harsh on Future Trunks after he'd been through so much.

The Tournament of Power has had its ups and downs from what I've seen so far. The episodes with Gohan and Piccolo training are some of my favourite of the entire series, while the other recruitment episodes seemed a bit silly. Like why does Goku feel the need to go Blue against literally everyone, including Krillin? I'm not one to obsess over power scaling, but these episodes require some serious suspension of disbelief, and I feel like Blue is being shown off too often.

While the action is good, I also feel like the Tournament itself lacks focus, like things are going all over the place. Goku suddenly busting out the Spirit Bomb against Jiren felt rushed. That move normally comes out as a last resort after a long and gruelling battle. Here he just seems to bust it out cuz why not. I did enjoy Goku's battles with Caulifla/Kale/Kefla though, and was happy to see SS2 get some love.

[ABED]

The toothpaste is out of the bottle. There's no going back to him being the ultimate evil. He's lost too many times for that.

I dunno why you think of all these things in terms of absolutes. Of course he can go back to being truly villainous. Creative writing has no limits.

He essentially still is truly villainous, he's just currently not that threatening. Vegeta is still worried about him, and is currently the main reason he still wants to train to get stronger. And speaking of Vegeta, I still feel like he hasn't had his proper revenge against Frieza. He almost had it in the RoF arc, but it was sort of robbed from him. That's a story that can still happen, and I think should happen.

It's not an absolute as much as it is a basic fact of humanity. At a certain point, you hit the point of diminishing returns. The more and more you do something, the less and less it means.

Now I don’t get why you created this thread in the first place if you only got to around episode 70 though.

Because I had seen enough to say "hey, you know what, it's not that bad, and at worst, it's like mediocre pizza - not great but still enjoyable."

battles were too bogged down with repetitive dialogue, like Goku banging on about how strong Beerus was.

I noticed that as well.

[emperior]

I haven't read the Super manga either. I've seen the entire anime though in both English and Japanese.

I've also never finished GT. I got up to episode 15 or whatever, but I couldn't stand it. So by that experience, I'd put Super far above GT. I feel like I'm only interested in canon Dragon Ball. I don't know the Xenoverse storyline either, and I've barely seen any of Heroes.

For the manga, I'm thinking about skipping right to the Moro arc since that's the only arc that doesn't (yet?) have an anime version.

I would suggest you to read all of Super’s manga before jumping to the latest arc.

It’s quite different from the anime, and in Super’s case the anime doesn’t animate the manga, though both tell the same arcs based on the same outlines from Toriyama.
I can tell you that, in my opinion, it’s definitely more consistent than the anime, better paced and structured better. Though its highest moments are not as hype as the anime’s, its lowest moments are not as low as the anime’s either.
I would have a difficult time telling you which product is the best one, as both have their strengths and weaknesses.

The stories, especially from Trunks arc onwards, are different enough to make it worth reading the manga.

And if all you care about is canon, it’s up to debate as to whether or not the manga or the anime of Super is canon, therefore both are considered as such.
Some people will tell you the manga might be the more canonical one due to being written by a single guy, with Toriyama’s supervision. Toriyama has even redrawn some boards, sketched out an entire page and rewrote some dialogue so he’s actively supervising it, and has also praised it a few times (something he never did for the anime, except for the movies).

[Skar]

The toothpaste is out of the bottle. There's no going back to him being the ultimate evil. He's lost too many times for that.

I dunno why you think of all these things in terms of absolutes. Of course he can go back to being truly villainous. Creative writing has no limits.

What creative writing would you suggest because making Freeza truly villainous again feels like the opposite of what they've been doing with him. Is the gag wish for wanting to grow 5 cm taller a cover for something more sinister?

[goku the krump dancer]

Anyway, there's a pretty great (at least the idea) reversal at the heart of the Zamasu arc. Trunks came back to the past to find a way to stop the Cyborgs who destroyed his world. He saves Goku's life. Ultimately it ended up saving his timeline, but ended up opening his world up to an even bigger threat. I love that when stories have something occur as a direct consequence of a previous action even if that action was performed to aid the protagonist. Reversals are a great tool in a writer's tool chest.

If this was a core theme behind the arc overall, I could get behind this idea. I cant though just because Zamasu hates everybody, his core purpose was to erase all sentient humanoid life i guess, he'wasn't trying to teach trunks a lesson. His main enemy was Goku, Trunks was a by product of that.

The way Zamasu delivers the line about Trunks traveling trough time ultimately being a bigger mistake than just letting the androids kill him and everybody else seems more like him teasing and being mean as opposed to teaching him some lesson about fate. Trunks saved Goku but a Goku from a totally different era, which resulted in Goku dying anyway but a bigger threat emerging in Majin Boo. Zamasu trying to include himself in the way things turned out as sort of prophecy only adds to his delusional view of himself.

[Melee_Sovereign]

What creative writing would you suggest because making Freeza truly villainous again feels like the opposite of what they've been doing with him. Is the gag wish for wanting to grow 5 cm taller a cover for something more sinister?

It really wouldn't take much creativity. All it would take is Frieza doing something downright horrible and reprehensible, which would still be completely in-character for him. Random example, he kills baby Bulla. That's all it would take. There was also that one goal of his where he wanted to reign over Zeno himself. There's a potential plot right there. He could even be planning for that behind the scenes while Goku and co. are dealing with Moro.

And I always interpreted him no-longer wanting immortality as him becoming more mature. Also, it was clearly a call-back to the Red Ribbon Army saga. More broadly speaking, it was just a random typical Dragon Ball gag that's thrown in there like any gag. That one gag doesn't redefine Frieza's entire character.

[WittyUsername]

Anyway, there's a pretty great (at least the idea) reversal at the heart of the Zamasu arc. Trunks came back to the past to find a way to stop the Cyborgs who destroyed his world. He saves Goku's life. Ultimately it ended up saving his timeline, but ended up opening his world up to an even bigger threat. I love that when stories have something occur as a direct consequence of a previous action even if that action was performed to aid the protagonist. Reversals are a great tool in a writer's tool chest.

If this was a core theme behind the arc overall, I could get behind this idea. I cant though just because Zamasu hates everybody, his core purpose was to erase all sentient humanoid life i guess, he'wasn't trying to teach trunks a lesson. His main enemy was Goku, Trunks was a by product of that.

The way Zamasu delivers the line about Trunks traveling trough time ultimately being a bigger mistake than just letting the androids kill him and everybody else seems more like him teasing and being mean as opposed to teaching him some lesson about fate. Trunks saved Goku but a Goku from a totally different era, which resulted in Goku dying anyway but a bigger threat emerging in Majin Boo. Zamasu trying to include himself in the way things turned out as sort of prophecy only adds to his delusional view of himself.

It’s admittedly been a while since I’ve watched the Future Trunks arc, but I never did understand why time travel is apparently a big sin in the world of Dragon Ball. It’s already been established that time travel in Dragon Ball doesn’t alter the present (unless you’re an angel, apparently), but rather, that it creates its own alternate reality that has no bearing on the one you traveled from. In that case, why does it matter if someone time travels?

[Skar]

It really wouldn't take much creativity. All it would take is Frieza doing something downright horrible and reprehensible, which would still be completely in-character for him. Random example, he kills baby Bulla. That's all it would take. There was also that one goal of his where he wanted to reign over Zeno himself. There's a potential plot right there. He could even be planning for that behind the scenes while Goku and co. are dealing with Moro.

I have feeling neither of these will happen. I don't see anyway for him to threaten Zeno without obtaining the Super Dragonballs which are scattered across two universes and require a language only the gods know. The reason why there is no rogue gallery in DB is because villains either reform or get killed if they're deemed too dangerous to let live. The only way Freeza could be the exception and a reoccuring villain that Goku keeps sparing is if Goku no longer considers him a threat. Doing something really evil like killing Bra means he'll likely suffer the same fate he did in first and second attempts at revenge.

Toriyama could've given the gag wish that references the RR saga to a different villain not Freeza. I don't recall Freeza having a Napoleon Complex but it might've been a way to show he changed somewhat and has more goofy "relatable" insecurities since no longer wants to wish for immortality and conquer the universe forever. His line about wanting to reign over Zeno was only in the anime-only so it might not have even been from Toriyama and won't go anywhere.

[WittyUsername]

The idea of a villain wanting to reign over Zen-Oh is too interesting an idea for them to actually tackle it in any meaningful way. I apologize if that sounds overly cynical, but that’s just not how modern Dragon Ball seems to operate. If Broly is any indication, Freeza will be more like the Filmation Skeletor from now on, rather than some Thanos or Darkseid level threat.

[Dbzfan94]

The idea of a villain wanting to reign over Zen-Oh is too interesting an idea for them to actually tackle it in any meaningful way. I apologize if that sounds overly cynical, but that’s just not how modern Dragon Ball seems to operate. If Broly is any indication, Freeza will be more like the Filmation Skeletor from now on, rather than some Thanos or Darkseid level threat.

This is exactly the analogy I use too. Freeza is basically Skeletor. “I’ll get you next time He-Man!” *shakes fist and runs away.* I will never agree with them letting Freeza did above all of else.

On the topic of not being able to finish GT, I’m the opposite. I enjoyed GT a lot. I found myself struggling to sit down to watch DBS every week back when it was airing. Only finished it just to see how it ended. I’ve soured on it since then and I don’t think I’ll return to it in any capacity beyond using those characters and recolors forms in the video games.