I've been thinking and honestly One Piece seems superior to Dragon Ball?

[funrush]

If the episode count is daunting then just read the manga instead. It only takes me like 30-45 minutes to read each volume, so ~50ish give or take hours of reading vs. ~310 hours of watching the anime.

The Pokémon anime is different. It's not a story as much as a promotional tool. OP and DB are stories first and foremost.

Yeah the story for the Pokemon anime is so barebones and cyclical that I almost consider it more of a long-running commercial than a show that's trying to tell a story. If you've seen one season of Pokemon, you've pretty much seen all of them.

[ABED]

It doesn't feel daunting as much drawn out. I don't mind spending a lot of time with characters and stories I enjoy, but after a certain point, stories reach a natural conclusion. No story I've ever seen reaches that point only after 20 years.

[Planetnamek]

If the episode count is daunting then just read the manga instead. It only takes me like 30-45 minutes to read each volume, so ~50ish give or take hours of reading vs. ~310 hours of watching the anime.

The Pokémon anime is different. It's not a story as much as a promotional tool. OP and DB are stories first and foremost.

Yeah the story for the Pokemon anime is so barebones and cyclical that I almost consider it more of a long-running commercial than a show that's trying to tell a story. If you've seen one season of Pokemon, you've pretty much seen all of them.

To be fair Pokemon does try to mix things up once in a while, there was an attempt to make Team Rocket be more competent and serious in Black and White, and Sun and Moon changed to a school setting instead of the usual "journey to eight gyms" plot. Honestly i'm at the point where I like the anime more then the games(Haven't played a game since 2007, and frankly after Dexit i've got zero urge to go back to them).

[Drepanosaurus]

I can't stand One Piece. The show's ugly art style and annoying characters turn me off for good.

[ekrolo2]

. It's much better at being an ensemble show than Dragon Ball is.

Dragon Ball isn’t an ensemble show. So there’s that.

Goku's the clear main character but there's multiple arcs where he's not even really a participant until the very end. Toriyama tries to show off the supporting cast often and even tries to make Gohan the main character, but he just doesn't pull off the balancing act as flawlessly as Oda does. In One Piece Luffy is the clear main character but all the members of the Strawhats are given opportunities to show their worth and have cool moments often. Even during Impel Down and Paramount War Luffy's accomplices all get their moments.

In DB those moments for the supporting cast are fewer and far between. Especially once you hit Super and it just becomes "the Goku and Vegeta show" and everyone else is cannon fodder, whereas Z at least made an attempt to juggle like 5 characters at once per arc. Some spots during the ToP and Trunks getting the jump on Zamazu are obvious exceptions but that's only a couple moments in a whole 130 episode series.

The only reason Toriyama juggled other characters besides Goku so much after Raditz is because he fell into the trap of repeating the same beat over and over again: remove Goku so he can come back for a big damn hero moment down the line. One of the best things Super did was basically cut this shit out and have him actively participate all the time.

[zekken1]

Like in the things it does. Characters are more fleshed out, but it doesn't go the seinen route or anything it still is very much shonen and it has that silliness Dragon Ball has with the serious moments in-between.

But when the moments are serious...they just are more richer and more fulfilling. And when the moments are sillier they are more humorous.

There's also like a certain consistency that Dragon Ball seemed to never truly have that One Piece has.

I feel Oda learned much from Toriyama and from learning his ways ended up creating something far more quality. Dragon Ball is still memorable for being the first and it still is great to watch, just I feel One Piece completely overshadows it now.

One Piece does indeed have a certain charm. But there is something with Dragon Ball which makes it such a phenomenon. Like for example the saga's they are very much iconic in all of anime in general.

Let's say for example you ask a casual fan of both OP and DBZ to recite the sagas in each series with Dragon Ball Z it'd be almost instantly Vegeta Saga, Namek Saga, Cell Saga and finally Buu. It could even work for Super. Like the Beerus saga is memorable and iconic due to it being the rivatilazing saga for DB after 18 years. The Zamasu saga iconic due to it's fantastic villian and return of Mirai Trunks. And the Tournament of Power don't get me started.

While for OP not so much, while there are rivaling iconic saga's to DB like Alabasta, Marineford and the current Wano. But they appear muddied to casual fans upon recollection due to how many short saga's there are in-between. I'm not saying that's a bad thing for the type of series OP is, it's actually a great way to go about it. But you cannot deny the drawback of diluting the real great stories with "not as" great stories.

I know for DB that i didn't mention the original Dragon Ball sagas and just took DBZ. And it's also true that the OP manga is almost double the length of DB's run in WSJ.
But really that's not the point, whatever the circumstances may be the fact still remain that the DBZ sagas are more iconic than the majority of OP's.

And even to this day the new adventures that may occur in a possible super continuation those saga's as well will be held in high regard, it'll be an event of what great threat or what great misfortune will befall the Z-Fighters this time.

[JulieYBM]

Pokemon has been--since at least 2015--an auteur-esque take on the infinite cour children's cartoon. Calling it a half-hour commercial completely ignores the vast amount of effort of vision the series actually has from it's staff on multiple levels of production.

[ABED]

Pokemon has been--since at least 2015--an auteur-esque take on the infinite cour children's cartoon. Calling it a half-hour commercial completely ignores the vast amount of effort of vision the series actually has from it's staff on multiple levels of production.

These things rarely lacked effort. That doesn't mean Pokemon isn't still a commercial for a video game. I would argue the best commercial for anything is a good story.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

If the episode count is daunting then just read the manga instead. It only takes me like 30-45 minutes to read each volume, so ~50ish give or take hours of reading vs. ~310 hours of watching the anime.

The Pokémon anime is different. It's not a story as much as a promotional tool. OP and DB are stories first and foremost.

Yeah the story for the Pokemon anime is so barebones and cyclical that I almost consider it more of a long-running commercial than a show that's trying to tell a story. If you've seen one season of Pokemon, you've pretty much seen all of them.

To be fair Pokemon does try to mix things up once in a while, there was an attempt to make Team Rocket be more competent and serious in Black and White, and Sun and Moon changed to a school setting instead of the usual "journey to eight gyms" plot. Honestly i'm at the point where I like the anime more then the games(Haven't played a game since 2007, and frankly after Dexit i've got zero urge to go back to them).

For me Pokemon was too little too late on changing up the formula. Team Rocket are gag characters and should stay that way, and if Ash has to go to school it doesn't really make sense why he wasn't doing it up until that point.

I liked the Pokemon anime up to the Hoenn stuff, but it overstayed it's welcome. One Piece and Dragon Ball justify their length better because characters grow and develop more naturally.

[JulieYBM]

The Pokemon anime is completely different from where it was 1997-2006. It consistently evolved and actually developed into a far better creature than when I first gave it up as a teen girl. Definitely give Sun & Moon a shot. It's a really refined beast unto it's own in comparison to the 1997 series.

[Planetnamek]

If the episode count is daunting then just read the manga instead. It only takes me like 30-45 minutes to read each volume, so ~50ish give or take hours of reading vs. ~310 hours of watching the anime.

Yeah the story for the Pokemon anime is so barebones and cyclical that I almost consider it more of a long-running commercial than a show that's trying to tell a story. If you've seen one season of Pokemon, you've pretty much seen all of them.

To be fair Pokemon does try to mix things up once in a while, there was an attempt to make Team Rocket be more competent and serious in Black and White, and Sun and Moon changed to a school setting instead of the usual "journey to eight gyms" plot. Honestly i'm at the point where I like the anime more then the games(Haven't played a game since 2007, and frankly after Dexit i've got zero urge to go back to them).

For me Pokemon was too little too late on changing up the formula. Team Rocket are gag characters and should stay that way, and if Ash has to go to school it doesn't really make sense why he wasn't doing it up until that point.

I liked the Pokemon anime up to the Hoenn stuff, but it overstayed it's welcome. One Piece and Dragon Ball justify their length better because characters grow and develop more naturally.

I watched Pokemon since I was a kid from the day it premiered in syndication until the last day it aired on public TV. Once it moved over to cable(which I didn't have and still don't as I can't really justify paying for it when I can get all the cable shows I want to see elsewhere) I kind of lost track and I had to keep up by getting the DVDs and several years ago I kind of dropped it for a while due to some personal stuff, then just last year I finally started getting back into it. I've been watching the Indigo League on Netflix and using Hulu to pick up where I left off in Black and White.

For me seeing all the new Pokemon in action is enough to justify it's length and seeing whatever new characters Ash journeys along with(and i'm so happy to hear that he FINALLY won a damn Pokemon league in Sun and Moon, him constantly coming up short in the finals is one of the things that led to me taking a break from the show as it started to get ridiculous after a while, especially the guy that pulled out a fucking Darkrai to defeat Ash, that was an asspull if I ever saw one)

Still pissed at how The Pokemon Company totally fucked over the original 4Kids voice cast though, they got fired essentially just for wanting a raise and I do at least partially blame them for Maddie Blaustein's tragic death as she wasn't able to deal with her diabetes due to her getting replaced and not being able to find work for a while . Oh what I would give to hear Veronica Taylor voice Ash again.

The Pokemon anime is completely different from where it was 1997-2006. It consistently evolved and actually developed into a far better creature than when I first gave it up as a teen girl. Definitely give Sun & Moon a shot. It's a really refined beast unto it's own in comparison to the 1997 series.

It's better in some ways, some of the voice-acting is better, some of it's worse and I'm not a fan of the fact that TCPI replaces WAY more of the music then 4Kids ever did.

I do agree that people that dismiss this show as a glorified commercial are doing a great disservice to all the effort that goes into the animation. There's some really memorable episodes(i'll never forget the one where Ash gets Charmander and Pikachu's Goodbye).

I remember a time when the first Pokemon movie was on IMDB's 100 worst movies list, even as a kid that smelled like bullshit to me.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Dragon Ball isn’t an ensemble show. So there’s that.

Goku's the clear main character but there's multiple arcs where he's not even really a participant until the very end. Toriyama tries to show off the supporting cast often and even tries to make Gohan the main character, but he just doesn't pull off the balancing act as flawlessly as Oda does. In One Piece Luffy is the clear main character but all the members of the Strawhats are given opportunities to show their worth and have cool moments often. Even during Impel Down and Paramount War Luffy's accomplices all get their moments.

In DB those moments for the supporting cast are fewer and far between. Especially once you hit Super and it just becomes "the Goku and Vegeta show" and everyone else is cannon fodder, whereas Z at least made an attempt to juggle like 5 characters at once per arc. Some spots during the ToP and Trunks getting the jump on Zamazu are obvious exceptions but that's only a couple moments in a whole 130 episode series.

The only reason Toriyama juggled other characters besides Goku so much after Raditz is because he fell into the trap of repeating the same beat over and over again: remove Goku so he can come back for a big damn hero moment down the line. One of the best things Super did was basically cut this shit out and have him actively participate all the time.

And the writing for excluding Goku kept getting worse. Cell arc was the worst example of this... a heart virus was used to get Goku to be out the story.

He just had a titanic battle with Freeza and somehow we have to believe a virus stops him in his tracks. Lmao.

[Hellspawn28]

I don't hate the 4kids dub of One Piece because I feel like it was not much different from Funimation's old dub of DBZ (Both Ocean and In house cast). Both of them had the violence be edited and was dumb for mindless kids entertainment. With 4kids One Piece dub, at least you know that it will be bad because it is from 4kids. With Funimation dub of DBZ at the time, no one knew what to expect.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

To be fair Pokemon does try to mix things up once in a while, there was an attempt to make Team Rocket be more competent and serious in Black and White, and Sun and Moon changed to a school setting instead of the usual "journey to eight gyms" plot. Honestly i'm at the point where I like the anime more then the games(Haven't played a game since 2007, and frankly after Dexit i've got zero urge to go back to them).

For me Pokemon was too little too late on changing up the formula. Team Rocket are gag characters and should stay that way, and if Ash has to go to school it doesn't really make sense why he wasn't doing it up until that point.

I liked the Pokemon anime up to the Hoenn stuff, but it overstayed it's welcome. One Piece and Dragon Ball justify their length better because characters grow and develop more naturally.

I watched Pokemon since I was a kid from the day it premiered in syndication until the last day it aired on public TV. Once it moved over to cable(which I didn't have and still don't as I can't really justify paying for it when I can get all the cable shows I want to see elsewhere) I kind of lost track and I had to keep up by getting the DVDs and several years ago I kind of dropped it for a while due to some personal stuff, then just last year I finally started getting back into it. I've been watching the Indigo League on Netflix and using Hulu to pick up where I left off in Black and White.

For me seeing all the new Pokemon in action is enough to justify it's length and seeing whatever new characters Ash journeys along with(and i'm so happy to hear that he FINALLY won a damn Pokemon league in Sun and Moon, him constantly coming up short in the finals is one of the things that led to me taking a break from the show as it started to get ridiculous after a while, especially the guy that pulled out a fucking Darkrai to defeat Ash, that was an asspull if I ever saw one)

Still pissed at how The Pokemon Company totally fucked over the original 4Kids voice cast though, they got fired essentially just for wanting a raise and I do at least partially blame them for Maddie Blaustein's tragic death as she wasn't able to deal with her diabetes due to her getting replaced and not being able to find work for a while . Oh what I would give to hear Veronica Taylor voice Ash again.

The Pokemon anime is completely different from where it was 1997-2006. It consistently evolved and actually developed into a far better creature than when I first gave it up as a teen girl. Definitely give Sun & Moon a shot. It's a really refined beast unto it's own in comparison to the 1997 series.

It's better in some ways, some of the voice-acting is better, some of it's worse and I'm not a fan of the fact that TCPI replaces WAY more of the music then 4Kids ever did.

I do agree that people that dismiss this show as a glorified commercial are doing a great disservice to all the effort that goes into the animation. There's some really memorable episodes(i'll never forget the one where Ash gets Charmander and Pikachu's Goodbye).

I remember a time when the first Pokemon movie was on IMDB's 100 worst movies list, even as a kid that smelled like bullshit to me.

Of course i was also quite heavily into Pokemon as a little kid given how absolutely massive it was in the late '90s/very early 2000's, and the original era of the initial span of years is what i prefer but especially the Indigo League portion most of all given that's where my nostalgia for the anime primarily lies aside from the OG Game Boy games (Red/Blue/Yellow) but since at least the start of the Hoenn era i have mostly caught scattered viewings of the series and not really had too much interest in the more recent stuff like Sun and Moon, and though the TCPI VA's have had good moments over the course of their over decade plus run since the unfortunate shakeup that lead up to them becoming the new voices, it's still hard even after all this time considering how much i had closely associated the 4Kids cast with the characters watching the show as a child.

[ekrolo2]

And the writing for excluding Goku kept getting worse. Cell arc was the worst example of this... a heart virus was used to get Goku to be out the story.

He just had a titanic battle with Freeza and somehow we have to believe a virus stops him in his tracks. Lmao.

Nah, that's fine. Power doesn't make you invulnerable to disease and Goku's reaction to something as normal as a virus doing him in so he couldn't fight the Androids before is one of the few moments I like from the arc.