Which character and/or plotline in the franchise is the biggest waste of potential?

[ABED]

She's not a fighter of a certain level. She's not even as strong as Goku was when we first meet him. It feels overly indulgent for someone that's not a main character.

The ToP should've come after several arcs involving the other universes

How long do you want Super to be?

would've worked to build suspense for the inevitable conflict by having characters, their histories, their feats, their relationships, etc. brewing in the back of the viewers' minds

All of that can be done at the same time.

[MyVisionity]

The counter point is that, its not the only moment in the series where some one is brutally beat down for an extended period, I feel like their's a level of innocence being played up because Videl is female but how is she any more innocent than Gohan getting beaten up by Recoome or Nappa?

It's not about any kind of innocence. It's primarily about Videl being a woman. Having a woman brutally and excessively beaten the way she was is going to be problematic, no matter the context. Especially in a children's cartoon. It doesn't matter whether or not she's in a domestic relationship with the person or not.

[LoganForkHands73]

The counter point is that, its not the only moment in the series where some one is brutally beat down for an extended period, I feel like their's a level of innocence being played up because Videl is female but how is she any more innocent than Gohan getting beaten up by Recoome or Nappa?

It's not about any kind of innocence. It's primarily about Videl being a woman. Having a woman brutally and excessively beaten the way she was is going to be problematic, no matter the context. Especially in a children's cartoon. It doesn't matter whether or not she's in a domestic relationship with the person or not.

I can only really speak for myself but it's drilled into our heads, across most cultures, that beating up women is wrong and repulsive. Fusion summarised it in his video that violence is glorified in culture, but mainly in the form of men beating up other men or women beating up men without real resistance. Whether or not that's considered right or properly feminist, it's just the way we've all been wired from early ages. Videl may have been slightly masculinized for the tournament what with the boyish haircut but even ignoring her gender, we know that she's cute and wide-eyed and extremely in over her head against Spopovitch. So I don't feel remotely weird saying that I'm not a big fan of seeing cute girls get their teeth shattered and skulls slowly crushed in a (relatively) lighthearted children's manga. Leave that sort of stuff to Ito.

The comparison with Gohan's beatdown scenes are weird to me because they're not exactly easy to sit through either and as has been said before, context matters. Gohan is simply stronger, more durable and ultimately more central to the plot than Videl, so we know that he can take a beating and is usually one rage-boost away from returning the favour to the perpetrator -- although he gets his ass seriously beat by Recoome, it doesn't feel as severe as Videl's because we know he can always bounce back somehow. Only a few chapters later, he starts kicking around the 2nd and 3rd Forms of Freeza. He may have got his neck snapped, but... 'tis but a flesh wound, by Saiyan standards anyway. Videl isn't a Saiyan. She's nowhere near the general weight class of the series' heavy-hitters, whereas Gohan always has been.

I argued in the MistareFusion thread that part of why the Videl scene is uncomfortable is because it takes place in what we consider a safe location. Unlike with Gohan, who's always thrust into the big life-or-death battles for the universe, Videl is just an amateur martial artist nowhere near his power level. Although the Tenkaichi Budokai has been home to its fair share of brutal, dramatic scenes, it's always been the fun, low-stakes battle location throughout the whole series. So seeing Videl suddenly get bloodily brutalised by a giant brute in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of spectators as well as all of the main cast who stand there doing nothing to prevent it, is incredibly jarring.

[Cursed Lemon]

How long do you want Super to be?

As long as it needs to be.

All of that can be done at the same time.

wat

[JulieYBM]

Like...the context of the Videl fight just doesn't make sense. Why in a comic aimed at kids is a onee-chan getting the shit kicked out of her like that? Like, I, a woman, might include something like that in an erotica or otherwise 18+ work but I would be doing that in a kids comic of all places. I just don't understand Toriyama's thinking behind it or rather, I'm trying to rationalize away a deep hatred of or sociopathic disconnect from women.

I was thinking earlier that I really do wish Chi-Chi had been a deurtagonist. I think having her join the crew and follow around Gokuu from the Mount Frypan arc through the rest of the series would have been interesting, especially in a way to give Gokuu and her both more development.

[ABED]

How long do you want Super to be?

As long as it needs to be.

All of that can be done at the same time.

wat

It's already 130+ episodes. "Needs to be" is so vague. There's such a thing as too long.

And I stand by my statement that you can establish story, character, stakes, backstory, etc. during the action. This shouldn't be controversial. Scenes should be doing more than one thing at any given time. Recall the previous tournaments. We got to know Tenshinhan and Chaozu during the tournament.

it's always been the fun, low-stakes battle location throughout the whole series.

The 23rd TB says otherwise.

[WittyUsername]

I’m gonna be honest when I say that the Videl vs. Spopovich fight never really stuck out to me. I can’t even really say that it’s particularly brutal for Dragon Ball standards. It doesn’t help that before she gets beaten down, Videl dislocates Spopovich’s neck, so it’s kind of difficult for me to view her as a helpless victim.

[LoganForkHands73]

it's always been the fun, low-stakes battle location throughout the whole series.

The 23rd TB says otherwise.

the Tenkaichi Budokai has been home to its fair share of brutal, dramatic scenes

[Cursed Lemon]

It's already 130+ episodes. "Needs to be" is so vague. There's such a thing as too long.

Well gosh.

Maybe they shouldn't have spent 30 episodes rehashing two different movies, for starters.

And I stand by my statement that you can establish story, character, stakes, backstory, etc. during the action.

This doesn't rebuke anything I said so I don't know how to respond to it.

[Skar]

The Tournament of Power was literally the laziest possible way to introduce multiple universes into the DB story. The ToP should've come after several arcs involving the other universes, which would've worked to build suspense for the inevitable conflict by having characters, their histories, their feats, their relationships, etc. brewing in the back of the viewers' minds. Instead, what's the one universe we explore (and not even explore, actually) before the ToP? The one with carbon-copy saiyans in it, down to the same actual transformations. Lazy doesn't even BEGIN to describe that.

I'm kinda conflicted with the way the multiverse was handled. On one hand, it feels like Toriyama wasn't sure what to do with it when he decided to continue after BoG and had a big tournament to get them out of the way. He didn't seem too enthusiastic about the ToP based on how little he wrote for that arc since it had the most differences between the two versions. For example, major moments like the way UI was achieved differed between the anime and manga and the ToP being a test was only in the anime so I can't tell which he decided on or if he left these decisions up to them.

On the other hand, I'm not sure what could've been done before. There are many great adventure animes they usually have a quest to find someone or something like in early DB. Goku joined Bulma to search for the Dragonballs and happened to make new friends and run into challenges along the way. They could have the Super Dragonballs scattered across seven universes but it would basically a repeat of the Blackstar saga which wasn't too different from the first saga of the series. Goku wouldn't be able to randomly travel from one planet or universe to another looking for strong guys since that might get old quickly.

One idea I had was inspired by the hero ranking in OPM and there could be a class system for God of Destruction candidates. Goku and Vegeta wouldn't be interested in the position but they "register" knowing other candidates will come looking for them in order to prove themselves. They could complete missions and deal with threats to boost their ranking which attracts even stronger candidates. I don't know if this would work but I recently watched OPM for the first time and thought it might be fun.

[ABED]

It's already 130+ episodes. "Needs to be" is so vague. There's such a thing as too long.

Well gosh.

Maybe they shouldn't have spent 30 episodes rehashing two different movies, for starters.

And I stand by my statement that you can establish story, character, stakes, backstory, etc. during the action.

This doesn't rebuke anything I said so I don't know how to respond to it.

It is already too long as is.

Not sure how it doesn’t rebuke anything you said. You don’t need several arcs to establish all the things you talked about before throwing them all in a tournament. Good writing accomplishes several things at the same time. We’ve seen it in DragonBall. The 22nd TB is a great example

[Cursed Lemon]

I'm pretty burnt out on anything resembling a tournament/placement scenario. That's one reason I've balked exceedingly hard on even giving My Hero Academia a shot because I am fairly confident that I cannot physically sit through another one.

One very easy way to make exploration interesting is to actually utilize all the side characters in a questing format. You immediately solve the problem of power creep and you inject legitimate variety into the show by default. Each character can show off strengths and have their moment in the sun while exploring rich, interesting worlds with environments that are engaging and easy on the eyes. We know Toriyama is capable of this because the original Dragon Ball series exists. It will also create a sense of danger/urgency in that they are separate and on unfamiliar worlds; no senzu beans, no last second run-ins by other characters, etc. It need not be complicated either - you only need one fight going on at a time to scratch the action itch, it's not necessary to confuse the audience with several B-plots running simultaneously. Meanwhile, have Goku and Vegeta take on a more mystery solving role, kind of like how Goku was trying to find out what happened to South Galaxy during Movie 8. This will prevent overexposure of the unambiguously strongest characters in the show and it will foster a much greater impact when they're brought back into the fold for a fight, as well as giving them a chance to let their strong personalities take center stage.

[Cursed Lemon]

It is already too long as is.

There are 111 anime with more episodes than Super. DBZ itself is over twice as long.

Not sure how it doesn’t rebuke anything you said. You don’t need several arcs to establish all the things you talked about before throwing them all in a tournament. Good writing accomplishes several things at the same time. We’ve seen it in DragonBall. The 22nd TB is a great example

Okay so are you haggling me down to two arcs or something?

[Skar]

One very easy way to make exploration interesting is to actually utilize all the side characters in a questing format. You immediately solve the problem of power creep and you inject legitimate variety into the show by default. Each character can show off strengths and have their moment in the sun while exploring rich, interesting worlds with environments that are engaging and easy on the eyes.

That could be interesting but what kind of exploration? In DBZ, they only left the Earth to search for DBs on Namek. Other than that, Goku only visited Yardrat because that's where the Ginyu ship was headed and New Namek to find a new guardian but he never had any interest in exploring the rest of the universe. What do you think would be a good reason for them to want to explore the multiverse? There's a possibility of fighting strong opponents hut where would he start and why would the others join him?

[JulieYBM]

Gokuu solving mysteries would be fun. I definitely want to see more sides of Gokuu, not just the same side over and over.

At the very least I want tournaments to be less linear and more about the preliminaries having different types of competitions, too.

Dragon Ball needs to stop only valuing direct battles between two people in their prime condition.

[Cursed Lemon]

That could be interesting but what kind of exploration? In DBZ, they only left the Earth to search for DBs on Namek. Other than that, Goku only visited Yardrat because that's where the Ginyu ship was headed and New Namek to find a new guardian but he never had any interest in exploring the rest of the universe. What do you think would be a good reason for them to want to explore the multiverse? There's a possibility of fighting strong opponents hut where would he start and why would the others join him?

I'll leave hashing out an entire plot to our hypothetical writers, suffice it to say original DB was brought up for this very reason. One thing that complicates it is that everyone has a family now, they're not rationally free to go cavorting around the literal multiverse.

[JulieYBM]

That could be interesting but what kind of exploration? In DBZ, they only left the Earth to search for DBs on Namek. Other than that, Goku only visited Yardrat because that's where the Ginyu ship was headed and New Namek to find a new guardian but he never had any interest in exploring the rest of the universe. What do you think would be a good reason for them to want to explore the multiverse? There's a possibility of fighting strong opponents hut where would he start and why would the others join him?

I'll leave hashing out an entire plot to our hypothetical writers, suffice it to say original DB was brought up for this very reason. One thing that complicates it is that everyone has a family now, they're not rationally free to go cavorting around the literal multiverse.

FAAAAAMMMMLYYYYYY VACAAAAAAAATION!!!!

*echoes into eternity*

[ABED]

It is already too long as is.

There are 111 anime with more episodes than Super. DBZ itself is over twice as long.

Not sure how it doesn’t rebuke anything you said. You don’t need several arcs to establish all the things you talked about before throwing them all in a tournament. Good writing accomplishes several things at the same time. We’ve seen it in DragonBall. The 22nd TB is a great example

Okay so are you haggling me down to two arcs or something?

Super is the latest in several DB series, so while there are longer anime out there than Super, Super episode 1 is actually closer to DB episode 500.

[JulieYBM]

If Pokemon can be enjoyable and fresh after 23 years--arguably becoming increasingly better since 2006--then Dragon Ball can also become better. Heck, ace Pokemon writer Tomioka Atsuhiro is literally working on Dragon Ball and his episodes have easily been some of the best scripts.

[ABED]

I wouldn't know, I haven't watched Pokemon in 20 years, but DB is not Pokemon. It's a story where characters grow and change. Pokemon is all about keeping the status quo and the plots are all interchangeable.