The new Dragon Ball room for 2021

[sunsetshimmer]

Goku knew about Oob in Super because he wished for his existence shortly after Boo was defeated

I believe the problem isn't Goku knowing about him, but Vegeta. If i remember well, at the end of story Goku had to explain to Vegeta who Uub is while in DBS he already heard about his existence. Correct me if i'm wrong.

[Majin Buu]

And that's fine. I don't watch Dragon Ball for complex storytelling. I watch it because the fights are fun, the characters are cool, and the antagonists are unique and interesting, with the exception of a few. I watch it because it's plain, simple fun.

Exactly.

Dragon Ball is just a fun martial arts story with some drama sprinkled in. That's all Dragon Ball has always been. A not insignificant number of fans seem to want Dragon Ball to be more than that, which is to say, they don't want Dragon Ball to be Dragon Ball anymore.

If fans want a more complex story, they're looking in the wrong place because you're not gonna get that in Dragon Ball. At best, you're only going to get subtext.

[Robo4900]

And that's fine. I don't watch Dragon Ball for complex storytelling. I watch it because the fights are fun, the characters are cool, and the antagonists are unique and interesting, with the exception of a few. I watch it because it's plain, simple fun.

Exactly.

Dragon Ball is just a fun martial arts story with some drama sprinkled in. That's all Dragon Ball has always been. A not insignificant number of fans seem to want Dragon Ball to be more than that, which is to say, they don't want Dragon Ball to be Dragon Ball anymore.

If fans want a more complex story, they're looking in the wrong place because you're not gonna get that in Dragon Ball. At best, you're only going to get subtext.

No one's crying out for Dragon Ball to become a deep, complex drama show.

What people do want is for the characters to feel like characters again, like they always did prior to 2008*, and for the plots to not be nonsensical, repetitive nonsense that could've been written by a 2-year-old, with an ongoing status quo that was suddenly introduced with Super and is never challenged. (And no, Goku and Vegeta getting arbitrarily stronger or gaining a new transformation doesn't count as a status quo change)

* If we ignore Kai (because it's just a recut of an existing show), modern Dragon Ball began in 2008 with the Yo Son Goku OVA, which was followed by another OVA in 2010, another in 2011, then finally Battle of Gods in 2013, which kickstarted Super. So, for the sake of argument, old Dragon Ball is everything prior to 2008 plus Kai, and modern Dragon Ball is everything from 2008 onwards, minus Kai.

Seriously, the Moro arc in particular was laughably badly plotted.

Spoiler:

Toriyama: Moro fights Goku and then Goku gets a powerup but Moro is strong so he turns into THE EARTH!... But even though they've faced this strong foe and like five others before this, things still go exactly back to how they were right after Battle Of Gods.

No one in that pitch meeting: WTF? Are you high?

There's a fun show that's not about a complex plot, and then there's a shit storyline that goes nowhere and does nothing.

The difference between old Dragon Ball and new Dragon Ball is that the few good things about new Dragon Ball (nostalgic character designs, flashy fights) can be seen elsewhere in shows that are infinitely better in every other regard, and thus infinitely more deserving of my time. Old Dragon Ball had likeable characters going on a journey across a long period in their lives, during which all kinds of fun fights and jokes happen. Vegeta isn't a lot of peoples' favourite character because he's grumpy and hotheaded about Goku, it's because he is a legitimately three-dimensional character who develops over the course of the original story.
New Dragon Ball has flanderised the characters into bland ciphers, and has no sense of progression either in terms of character, story, world, or tone... While the original run always tried new things and took the characters new places, introduced new ideas and tones, Super has been utterly stagnant and totally creatively bankrupt, aside from the Broly movie.

Precisely how the same creative team can turn out both the Black arc and Super Broly, is beyond me.

By all means, enjoy the flashy fight scenes of Super, but don't for a minute lose sight of the fact that Super's detractors have legitimate reasons to dislike it. Belittling the criticisms and pretending Super's detractors want something Dragon Ball never was, is a dishonest way to go about this. "It has some fun fights" just isn't enough for some of us. If that's enough for you, fair play to you, and I'm honestly glad you get some joy out of this thing, but Dragon Ball used to be more than that, and when it lost its "more", it lost me and many others.

I'm glad you still get a lot of joy out of watching new Dragon Ball, but I don't, and I'd appreciate it if you accepted that some people have legitimate reasons to not like a thing that you like, accept that the thing you like is flawed, and just move on and continue enjoying it, rather than pretending that we're somehow wrong for not liking something.

[Majin Buu]

No one's crying out for Dragon Ball to become a deep, complex drama show.

The core sentiment I sense from those that want the story to go in new directions like this that Dragon Ball needs to change into something it's fundamentally not. That's what I'm criticizing.

What people do want is for the characters to feel like characters again, like they always did prior to 2008*, and for the plots to not be nonsensical, repetitive nonsense

As long as they want to keep pumping out new Dragon Ball stuff, it's going to be more of the same stuff since the creative well ran dry long ago (even on Toriyama's part at times). I've said this many times before, but Dragon Ball just needs to be over and done with. Making it different enough to feel fresh again would require turning it into something it's not.

Seriously, the Moro arc in particular was laughably badly plotted.

From what I've read about the Moro arc, I actually find it the most genuinely intriguing arc in Super thus far. For the first time, I actually want the anime to return to see how they adapt it. Though it's mainly because Moro, like Zamasu, genuinely sounds like something new for a Dragon Ball villain.

There's a fun show that's not about a complex plot, and then there's a shit storyline that goes nowhere and does nothing.

None of that should be surprising at this point. Given where Super is set in the timeline, stories that go nowhere and don't upset the status quo are kinda off the table by default.

New Dragon Ball has flanderised the characters into bland ciphers, and has no sense of progression either in terms of character, story, world, or tone... While the original run always tried new things and took the characters new places, introduced new ideas and tones, Super has been utterly stagnant and totally creatively bankrupt, aside from the Broly movie.

Again, a consequence of where Super is set in the timeline coupled with inadequate writers and the creative well being run dry. But at this point it's either this or end it (the right choice IMO), and Toei/Shuesha/Toriyama clearly don't want to end it.

By all means, enjoy the flashy fight scenes of Super, but don't for a minute lose sight of the fact that Super's detractors have legitimate reasons to dislike it.

You're talking to someone that's never been into Super and has only just recently decided to check it out, if only out of intellectual curiosity.

Belittling the criticisms and pretending Super's detractors want something Dragon Ball never was, is a dishonest way to go about this.

My post was never aimed at Super detractors (again, I've never been into Super myself), it's more at the people who propose what I consider to be outlandish changes like making the story more complex, or making Dragon Ball an MCU-like thing, or introducing a new generation of characters, or having Goku not be the main character, etc.

"It has some fun fights" just isn't enough for some of us. If that's enough for you, fair play to you, and I'm honestly glad you get some joy out of this thing, but Dragon Ball used to be more than that, and when it lost its "more", it lost me and many others.

Dragon Ball was never anything more than an entertaining martial arts story. What it used to be was well-written. Modern Dragon Ball, for the most part, is not well-written.

I'm glad you still get a lot of joy out of watching new Dragon Ball but I don't, and I'd appreciate it if you accepted that some people have legitimate reasons to not like a thing that you like, accept that the thing you like is flawed, and just move on and continue enjoying it, rather than pretending that we're somehow wrong for not liking something.

Again, most of this doesn't actually apply to me (as of now, don't know how I'll feel coming out of Super once I start watching it).

[Robo4900]

The core sentiment I sense from those that want the story to go in new directions like this that Dragon Ball needs to change into something it's fundamentally not. That's what I'm criticizing.

The thing is, Dragon Ball, until Super, was fundamentally a show that went new directions every arc or so. Super not doing that is a change, and certainly one for the worse.

I think there is, for sure, an undercurrent of fans who suggest really stupid ideas for directions Super could take that wouldn't be the shit direction it has taken, but that's not out of a desire for something that isn't Dragon Ball, that's out of desperation for something that isn't Dragon Ball Super.

As long as they want to keep pumping out new Dragon Ball stuff, it's going to be more of the same stuff since the creative well ran dry long ago (even on Toriyama's part at times). I've said this many times before, but Dragon Ball just needs to be over and done with. Making it different enough to feel fresh again would require turning it into something it's not.

Eh, I think it's easy enough to make it fresh again, but to do that, you need a new creative regime. Which basically means replacing Toriyama and Toyotaro, which will never happen.

Dragon Ball shouldn't have come back for Super in the way it did -- as you note, it's clear Toriyama has been out of ideas for a long time -- but I think new blood could inject a freshness that's missing. We're just never going to get that, which is why it's so stale.

Evolution's creators have more to answer for than just making a bad movie over a decade ago -- if Evolution hadn't sucked (or hadn't been made), Toriyama would never have returned to Dragon Ball for BOG, and we'd have an entirely different creative regime behind Dragon Ball. By the sounds of it, probably a far more ambitious one; the takes we've heard about the earlier development of BOG don't sound like the best thing ever, but it certainly sounds fresher than the rather bland nostalgia trip Super has tried to be so far.

FWIW, I think Toriyama still has a place in modern Dragon Ball as long as he cares enough to want to be there, but I think that place is mostly a design and advisory role these days; it's clear to me that his heart was only really in it for Broly and Battle Of Gods, everything else just strikes me as him being kinda on autopilot. Rather than doing it because he's aching to tell a new Dragon Ball story, he's doing it just because he's getting paid to, and because if he didn't, someone else would, and after Evolution, he doesn't want just anyone to make new Dragon Ball.

From what I've read about the Moro arc, I actually find it the most genuinely intriguing arc in Super thus far. For the first time, I actually want the anime to return to see how they adapt it. Though it's mainly because Moro, like Zamasu, genuinely sounds like something new for a Dragon Ball villain.

Don't get your hopes up... Like a lot of Super, it introduces some potentially fun ideas, but consistently does nothing with them, there's no feel of stakes, etc., and the villain is quite bland, really. (Though, granted, that last one could probably be solved if they hire a really great actor for him in the anime)

None of that should be surprising at this point. Given where Super is set in the timeline, stories that go nowhere and don't upset the status quo are kinda off the table by default.

This is really why I'm writing this post -- I disagree with you, and all others who take this view, because it fundamentally is based off the idea that because we know where we will end up (EoZ), we know all the beats that will take us along that way... Which we don't.

So, as a thought experiment, consider this alternate take on Super:

• Freeza survives Resurrection F, thus placing him in space as a looming threat. This changes the situation because now there's an active threat to be scared of, so everyone has a good reason to keep in shape.
• The Universe 6 vs 7 tournament ends with Goku conceding, then Hit beats Monaka, so team universe 7 loses. Earth goes to Universe 6, and we say bye-bye to Beerus as a recurring character. This changes things because now, Beerus is gone, and the gang are at the mercy of a far more fickle god of destruction who doesn't have any attachment to earth or its inhabitants, and the gang no longer have Namek to go to -- but they do have universe 6's Saiyan planet, so maybe Cabba joins the cast as a semi-regular too. Maybe we even get an early introduction to Caulifla and Kale.
• The Black arc ends with Trunks's timeline being utterly destroyed with no chance of ever returning to it, and Beerus shoots down any ideas of creating yet another timeline by him going to an earlier point; as it stands, Trunks is lucky Beerus doesn't just kill him outright. Instead, Trunks is stranded here in the prime timeline.
• The Tournament of Power features Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, Gohan, Piccolo, Cabba, Caulifla, Kale, Hit, and maybe either Boo or a U6 Namekian?... The gang's primary opposition isn't the bland brick wall of Geran/Jiren, but instead is Freeza at the height of his power, a fusion of all the surviving warrior-type Namekians, and some other dregs of universe 7 now that the main gang aren't there (hell, maybe Geran/Jiren's design and the "Ultra Instinct" stuff could be reused for some new guy Freeza found). The tournament ends with Trunks wanting to restore the deleted universes, but the Omni-Kings say no. The universes were to be erased here, and so they will stay erased. Stakes and consequences!

So, you have Trunks as a failed hero going through something of a redemption arc, you have a new society of Saiyans to play with -- in fact, you have an entire new universe to play with, and thus an easy excuse for all new, more powerful space villains to fight -- and all you have to do to connect it to EoZ is have Trunks get hired by the Kaioshin of Time to go join the Time Patrol. And each arc has had permanent consequences -- Freeza lingered and came back to bite them in a later arc, the gang said goodbye to Beerus so Goku could live in the same universe as Hit and fight all the U6 strong guys, the gang lost in the Black arc so hard that Trunks is now stuck outside his home timeline, and the tournament of power has eliminated the entire original cosmos of Dragon Ball prior to this point.

It's easy to change the situation, add stakes and tension, give the arcs real consequences, and move characters forward without making EoZ impossible. In fact, this would arguably make EoZ more plausible since Beerus and Whis aren't hanging around. Granted, Champa and Vados are, but that can easily be handwaved as them never developing an attachment to the main cast.

And this is just ideas I've idly thought up to throw onto the existing arcs. I haven't planned or storylined this out, this is just riffing. You could go a lot further if you actually storyline this kind of thing.

But, Toei and/or Toriyama have no interest in moving forward, they are choosing to stagnate Dragon Ball, and it really sucks to see. Toriyama is afraid of moving the characters forward into old age, and Toei's current story group wants to keep things in their most marketable state, so nothing changes. But given the freedom to actually change things, to be honest I think practically anyone could come up with a more interesting direction for Super to take; all you need is more room for characters, real stakes, and real progression from arc to arc. And that's why I don't merely dislike Super, I consider it the single worst piece of Dragon Ball media. (And it's also why I find it so immensely frustrating that they got it right with Broly, and yet they've got it wrong every single other time!)

I was promised new Dragon Ball, and instead I was given an insulting, nostalgiabait mess that goes against everything that I think is genius about the original. A very interesting case of failure (much like the Star Wars prequel trilogy), but I would much rather have good Dragon Ball to enjoy instead. (Though, granted, the ending of the Moro arc was so fundamentally wrongheaded and stupid, I actually really enjoyed it from a "So bad it's good" perspective, and I'm kinda really excited to see where it goes next to see if it continues to be so entertainingly stupid and awful)

You're talking to someone that's never been into Super and has only just recently decided to check it out, if only out of intellectual curiosity.
[...]
Again, most of this doesn't actually apply to me (as of now, don't know how I'll feel coming out of Super once I start watching it).

I think I've covered the rest of your post above already, but this I should address -- sorry for assuming.

And while I'm apologising -- sorry for the long post too.

And furthermore, apologies to any Super fans who are tired of seeing me dunk on Super and immediately thought "not this shit again" when they saw that I've posted in this thread.

[Grimlock]

There's nothing to apologize for. It's not our fault Dragon Ball Super ended up being such a terrible series. We have every right to be frustrated that our beloved series didn't live up to the standards and expectations of a modern time. It has a lot to learn from the likes of Attack on Titan, Avatar, Dragon Quest, One Piece and many more, both from an in-universe and out-universe perspective.

[Robo4900]

There's nothing to apologize for. It's not our fault Dragon Ball Super ended up being such a terrible series. We have every right to be frustrated that our beloved series didn't live up to the standards and expectations of a modern time. It has a lot to learn from the likes of Attack on Titan, Avatar, Dragon Quest, One Piece and many more, both from an in-universe and out-universe perspective.

To be honest, it has a lot to learn from the original Dragon Ball/Z manga and anime too.

GT as well, in a lot of ways; the first 8 episodes sucked, and most of the rest of it was only decent, but at least it had ambition. It failed at trying something new and interesting, instead of failing to do what we'd already seen done well in Dragon Ball years prior.

[Majin Buu]

The thing is, Dragon Ball, until Super, was fundamentally a show that went new directions every arc or so. Super not doing that is a change, and certainly one for the worse.

Yes, Toriyama constantly took the story in new directions, but the fundamental core of what that story is never changed: It always remained simple with some drama thrown in.

Eh, I think it's easy enough to make it fresh again, but to do that, you need a new creative regime. Which basically means replacing Toriyama and Toyotaro, which will never happen.

Toriyama set the tone for what Dragon Ball is, and I suspect a new creative regime with a mandate to make it fresh again would fundamentally alter that. Dragon Ball is what it is, and what that is has been worn so very thin at this point that you can't really do more with it without fundamentally altering the core nature of the story.

Dragon Ball shouldn't have come back for Super in the way it did -- as you note, it's clear Toriyama has been out of ideas for a long time -- but I think new blood could inject a freshness that's missing.We're just never going to get that, which is why it's so stale.

Dragon Ball shouldn't have come back period. At least not as an ongoing series.

FWIW, I think Toriyama still has a place in modern Dragon Ball as long as he cares enough to want to be there, but I think that place is mostly a design and advisory role these days; it's clear to me that his heart was only really in it for Broly and Battle Of Gods, everything else just strikes me as him being kinda on autopilot. Rather than doing it because he's aching to tell a new Dragon Ball story, he's doing it just because he's getting paid to, and because if he didn't, someone else would, and after Evolution, he doesn't want just anyone to make new Dragon Ball.

Exactly.

Don't get your hopes up... Like a lot of Super, it introduces some potentially fun ideas, but consistently does nothing with them, there's no feel of stakes, etc., and the villain is quite bland, really. (Though, granted, that last one could probably be solved if they hire a really great actor for him in the anime)

I'll be the judge of that- if the anime ever comes back that is.

As for your ideas, I like some of them, others I disagree with. For instance, they should have instead kept Freeza dead after Resurrection F and not brought him back again for the Universe Survival arc. For all your complaints about Super's nostalgia pandering, keeping him around as a major looming threat would only play into that just as much as having him in the Universe Survival arc was to begin with.

Speaking of which, it wouldn't take much to instead flesh out Jiren into a more interesting character. Perhaps create a hybrid of his manga and anime personalities: A superhero that genuinely believes in stopping evil, but has no qualms about taking things too far with what he perceives to be evil doers; like a Dragon Ball version of Akainu from One Piece. Perhaps he overhears that Goku is endangering his universe simply for the sake of a good fight and commits to destroying him because he sees Goku as evil for that, but takes it too far by, when he's losing his fight with Goku, going off the deep end and tying to kill his friends by rationalizing that they're just as guilty for associating with Goku and helping him. You wouldn't even have to change his backstory to fit this characterization, just make the loss of his family his motivation to destroy all evil at all costs.

But, Toei and/or Toriyama have no interest in moving forward, they are choosing to stagnate Dragon Ball, and it really sucks to see. Toriyama is afraid of moving the characters forward into old age, and Toei's current story group wants to keep things in their most marketable state, so nothing changes.

I suspect this is why the show is specifically set in between the Buu arc and EOZ instead of simply being set after EOZ. They wanted to take any storylines that could actually change the status quo off the table with that as the built-in excuse; hence, stories that go nowhere are all we get. That's a feature, not a bug.

I was promised new Dragon Ball, and instead I was given an insulting, nostalgiabait mess that goes against everything that I think is genius about the original.

I personally always expected Super to be more of the same, never had any expectations that it would be anything more than that due to, again, the creative well being run dry. That's why I never bothered with it until I recently changed my mind.

I think I've covered the rest of your post above already, but this I should address -- sorry for assuming.

No problem.

[ABED]

DB's characters completed their arcs but on occasson there are refreshing moments like Goku's relationship with Pan or Vegeta looks to become a mentor or Gohan mixing his scholarly side with his warrior side. Even if Super goes beyond the manga, it will still feel like same song different verse.

DB is now like pizza - even mediocre pizza is still enjoyable. As long as it's fun, there are enough little moments I really dig, and the stories pay off what they set up in a satisfying way, I'm good

Robo your alternate take has some flaws - It still has Freeza as a recurring villain which doesn't help matters.
Why get rid of Beerus? He's one of the best characters DB ever created.
What you mentioned aren't stakes. Why would we give a damn about characters we don't care about being wiped out of existence? The stakes need to matter to the audience.
There is NO tension because we know where things end up.

[Grimlock]

To be honest, it has a lot to learn from the original Dragon Ball/Z manga and anime too.

GT as well, in a lot of ways; the first 8 episodes sucked, and most of the rest of it was only decent, but at least it had ambition.

Certainly. It's just that there are some things in Dragon Ball that didn't age well, as well as there are things that must never come back (such as Muten Roshi's attitude towards girls, which unfortunately still happens and there are people who still think it's fun). But yeah, since Dragon Ball Super is inferior to those series (including Dragon Ball GT, for me), they could teach the latest series a new thing or two.

[Jord]

The only way we can have actual stakes is taking characters that are not available in EoZ and put them in danger since we don't know if they'd survive or just skip forward to EoZ.
I don't actually see Beerus and Whis getting into danger so the best bet for the first scenario would be Future Trunks but they ditched him after the Zamasu Saga.
Or just create a multiverse of some sorts.

[sangofe]

So I've heard that Toei wants to expand Dragon Ball worldwide...I have my suspicions. It's honestly a sight to behold; who would've thought that a small manga like Dragon Ball was in its beginning would eventually blossom to become a worldwide phenomenon?! Honestly, I am proud of Dragon Ball

What's new?

[Robo4900]

Robo your alternate take has some flaws - It still has Freeza as a recurring villain which doesn't help matters.

As for your ideas, I like some of them, others I disagree with. For instance, they should have instead kept Freeza dead after Resurrection F and not brought him back again for the Universe Survival arc. For all your complaints about Super's nostalgia pandering, keeping him around as a major looming threat would only play into that just as much as having him in the Universe Survival arc was to begin with.

Mm, good point.

TBH, a better way to do it would be to just... Not do ResF at all. Completely drop that story, and just go straight into the U6 tournament. ResF really adds nothing to Dragon Ball. Drop it entirely, and replace it with something else.

Speaking of which, it wouldn't take much to instead flesh out Jiren into a more interesting character.

Given he has no character or intrigue at all in Super as-is, all you have to do is assign some personality to him, and you instantly have an infinitely more interesting character with infinitely more personality.

Why get rid of Beerus? He's one of the best characters DB ever created.

Ehh. He feels like a fairly natural addition to the cast, but mostly he just hangs around as a joke, and it's a joke that got old basically the moment it came back after Battle of Gods. Granted, better writing could probably get around the problem that, if Beerus actually got involved in any of these stories, they'd be over in seconds, and thus would actually use the character effectively so he's not just a joke, but writing a story with the most powerful god there is on the goodguys' side is a pretty serious straightjacket to put yourself in for a martial arts show.

What you mentioned aren't stakes. Why would we give a damn about characters we don't care about being wiped out of existence? The stakes need to matter to the audience.

The erasure of Planet Namek and everything else in universe 7 that wasn't on earth at the exact moment it was moved, should be fairly impactful. Dende loses his family, Piccolo loses his ancestral home, etc. If Jaco is on earth, his Galactic Patrol is gone. Kaioshin and Kaio are gone. Yemma/Enma is gone.

And hey -- Beerus and Whis are gone this way too. You said Beerus is one of the best Dragon Ball characters, after all.

There is NO tension because we know where things end up.

Just because we know where things will be 10 years later doesn't mean we know how things will get there. As I noted, Kaio, Namek, Beerus, and Whis could all be destroyed in the meantime, Goku and Vegeta could fail to save Trunks's timeline, and thus he could get stuck here (which then creates tension because we know he's not around in EoZ, so what happens to him?)...
Hell, when you're watching a movie/TV show you've already seen, there's often still tension. Even though you know exactly what's going to happen, it's still tense, because it's well-written.

Putting tension and mystery into the pre-EoZ era doesn't come as naturally as with a proper sequel like GT, but it's doable if you put even the slighest amount of creativity or work in, which the Super writers have thus far shown no interest in. Putting things in pre-EoZ is an easy way to get a no-tension status quo show like Super, and it's clear that was deliberately part of Super's intention (as Majin Buu notes), but there's no reason a better creative team couldn't still make the best of it and do interesting things.

Pre-EoZ isn't an inherently impossible situation that fundamentally makes it impossible to tell good stories, is basically my thesis here. It's just not the problem people think it is. The problem is that Toei/Toriyama are doing absolutely nothing with the ~10 years they have in this gap, they're intentionally designing it to be exactly what people think an interquel is doomed to be. It could be so much more, but there's no interest in doing that.

[ABED]

The erasure of Planet Namek and everything else in universe 7 that wasn't on earth at the exact moment it was moved, should be fairly impactful. Dende loses his family, Piccolo loses his ancestral home, etc. If Jaco is on earth, his Galactic Patrol is gone. Kaioshin and Kaio are gone. Yemma/Enma is gone. And hey -- Beerus and Whis are gone this way too. You said Beerus is one of the best Dragon Ball characters, after all.

since we know Goku and his friends are alive that all feels like shmuck-bait.

And I don't like the idea of the Earth we see at the end of db being a different planet. It doesn't make any sense and would lead to a very different ending.

Granted, better writing could probably get around the problem that, if Beerus actually got involved in any of these stories, they'd be over in seconds, and thus would actually use the character effectively so he's not just a joke, but writing a story with the most powerful god there is on the goodguys' side is a pretty serious straightjacket to put yourself in for a martial arts show.

I like that he's often used as a joke. It's part of what makes him so fun to watch but we also know if he wanted to he is a force to be reckoned with like when he obliterated zamasu.

Losing all the characters you named would just feel like they are killing the ones they know they can and still keep DBZ's ending but if they are all still dead during that ending, that's poor writing as that ending would have to acknowledge the loss in some way. All that death an Z's ending are incongruous.

I kinda like the Trunks in the time patrol idea.

[MasenkoHA]

Thinking there can’t be any tension or stakes because “we know Goku and company live long enough to see the 28th Budokai and for Goku to up and leave to train Oob” just seems like a lack of imagination to me.

[ABED]

It takes more skill than you all give it credit for to make people care about the stakes of a story that's a prequel or inbetequel. Better Call Saul pulls it off but that's exceptionally well written and acted. I know Super isn't held in high regard here but I don't think they put no effort into it so it's not just a matter of a little more effort in the writing.

[Cure Dragon 255]

SPOILER ALERT, End of Z takes place in hell!

[LoganForkHands73]

I'd say I'm in agreement with ABED here. Dragon Ball has never been a series about lasting consequences for the characters and setting (I mean, there's like ten different hassle free methods to resurrect the dead now) so I don't get why there's a sudden expectation for them. No shade on your ideas Robo, I get it was just lighthearted spitballing and I certainly agree that Trunks should've stayed on for the Tournament of Power, but most of that outline doesn't feel tonally right for Dragon Ball at all, nor would it ever be a realistic expectation for the series. Dragon Ball is no stranger to grim storylines but you don't need to give every arc a downer ending to convey emotional stakes.

That's not to say I want Dragon Ball to be forever imaginatively bankrupt but balancing the correct tone with the wacky ideas is always essential. I can't imagine all the main cast being particularly happy and content as they are by EOZ with the knowledge that Trunks is now a permanent orphan from a destroyed timeline, and every other universe has remained erased, all their alien and godly friends from Universe 7 are gone... It'd be a wonder they're not all suicidally depressed. This isn't Game of Thrones, Jesus.

[Planetnamek]

So other countries could potentially get their own homegrown versions of Dragon Ball? That's an interesting idea to say the least. I do wonder what DB would be like if a US studio made their own version from the ground up(like Toonmakers attempted to do for Sailor Moon), we have seen US exclusive sequels to anime(Yugioh Capsule Monsters and Duel Masters Sacred Lands being two examples)so this certainly isn't without precedent.

[sangofe]

So other countries could potentially get their own homegrown versions of Dragon Ball? That's an interesting idea to say the least. I do wonder what DB would be like if a US studio made their own version from the ground up(like Toonmakers attempted to do for Sailor Moon), we have seen US exclusive sequels to anime(Yugioh Capsule Monsters and Duel Masters Sacred Lands being two examples)so this certainly isn't without precedent.

Excuse me, is this your idea, or some rumour you heard somewhere?