Can DB Ever Move Past Goku?

[jjgp1112]

It's been Dragon Ball's premise from the beginning. Because either through planning or a happy accident, Toriyama made Goku, the main character, the lone participant in the original arc who couldn't have cared less about the actual goal of finding Dragon Balls and was just there to beat people up for Bulma. Once he made the balls inert, the story had to shift to Goku's desire...which is to be the best fighter ever. But how does he know he's the best? He doesn't! There's always somebody better. So that simple premise allows the show to just keep going and going and going.

Vegeta's the only other character that can maintain that premise. Gohan has no interest in that.

I like the premise of the original ending because after 10 years of seemingly being the definitive best, Goku is bored. And then he finds a little kid that could potentially be stronger than him and is all fired up again. The book closes, but with the implication that the adventure is far from over.

[ABED]

Gohan stans just can’t be satisfied unless he’s the main character and reached Mystical Ultimate Instinct Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Gohan.

This. Gohan fans basically want him to become Future Gohan with appropriate power scaling and the lead role (and both of his arms).

Hey now, I like the one arm look. Has some fun implications for fights. Can't parry and punch with only one arm!

But I will strive to be more like the rest of fandom and just be as pigheaded as possible whenever change is brought up. That is the key to happiness, after all.

Even if Goku himself doesn't change that doesn't mean there can't be changes int he status quo. I don't think DB would be better off for switching after this long. We're invested in him and his journey.

Goku is not on a journey. He hasn't been on one since he beat Freeza. There was something like a journey in Cell that Toriyama sorta tried to do again in Buu but that fizzled out when he decided the 'next generation' was only ever going to be dead weight. GT also, inadvertently, gave Goku a bit of a journey (an end to the age of heroes kinda deal) but they didn't realize what they had and while the ending was great everything before it was forgettable.

Right now, there is no difference between what Goku's doing and what silver-age Superman used to do. Big bad shows up, hero develops insane new power, big bad gets beat. Now there's nothing wrong with that. Spectacle for the sake of spectacle can be fun. It was pretty cool seeing what new abilities Superman would come up with in each new issue. But that's not a journey. Despite the superficial changes, things are pretty obviously static and journeys involve, you know, movement.

His journey is to be the best he can be.

I don't see how Gohan being the main character isn't a superficial change in the same way you describe Silver Age Superman. Big Bad will show up, but now it's Gohan who defeats him.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Goku's is in a perpetual journey to break his limits and grow into a stronger and better fighter. That is why he was excited to meet Beerus, train with Whis, etc; he can grow stronger and practice martial arts with new people.

That's not a journey or character arc. It's barely a premise.

But I will strive to be more like the rest of fandom and just be as pigheaded as possible whenever change is brought up. That is the key to happiness, after all.

Haha I’m better than everyone else because I need a new main character because progress only happens when the main character is switched out.

While I doubt I'm better than the average person, I'm 100% better than you

It's been Dragon Ball's premise from the beginning. Because either through planning or a happy accident, Toriyama made Goku, the main character, the lone participant in the original arc who couldn't have cared less about the actual goal of finding Dragon Balls and was just there to beat people up for Bulma. Once he made the balls inert, the story had to shift to Goku's desire...which is to be the best fighter ever. But how does he know he's the best? He doesn't! There's always somebody better. So that simple premise allows the show to just keep going and going and going.

Like I said, this is just silver age Superman and, honestly, you guys should just embrace it. Episodic movies like what the Z films were doing would probably give you what you want a lot quicker than convoluted arcs. It'd also be a lot less work on TOEI's part.

[PurestEvil]

Goku's is in a perpetual journey to break his limits and grow into a stronger and better fighter. That is why he was excited to meet Beerus, train with Whis, etc; he can grow stronger and practice martial arts with new people.

That's not a journey or character arc. It's barely a premise.

How the hell is it not any of those things? It's literally Goku's main motivation and a root origin for a good chunk of the plotlines.

But I will strive to be more like the rest of fandom and just be as pigheaded as possible whenever change is brought up. That is the key to happiness, after all.

Haha I’m better than everyone else because I need a new main character because progress only happens when the main character is switched out.

While I doubt I'm better than the average person, I'm 100% better than you

Now you are just being an asshat, dude.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

How the hell is it not any of those things? It's literally Goku's main motivation and a root origin for a good chunk of the plotlines.

Motivation isn't a character arc. Watching motivation change can be part of one but alone it's not really anything. Take the "wanting to test yourself" motivation and transplant it into a different genre and it should become pretty obvious. Private detective Hercule Poirot isn't on a journey when he solves crimes. He's just solving crimes because that's how he gets his kicks and pays his rent. The journey doesn't happen until much later when he has to reconcile his need to get a dangerous (and elusive) serial killer off the streets with his faith's rejection of murder as justifiable. The journey doesn't happen until the hero has to confront a struggle that regardless of the resolution will force a change on him.

Now you are just being an asshat, dude.

Look, I get every forum gives long time users an incredible amount of leeway in how they're allowed to treat newcomers but I'm not taking Masenko's bullshit lying down. He wants to insult me, I'm gonna insult him right back.

[MasenkoHA]

Motivation isn't a character arc. Watching motivation change can be part of one but alone it's not really anything. Take the "wanting to test yourself" motivation and transplant it into a different genre and it should become pretty obvious. Private detective Hercule Poirot isn't on a journey when he solves crimes. He's just solving crimes because that's how he gets his kicks and pays his rent. The journey doesn't happen until much later when he has to reconcile his need to get a dangerous (and elusive) serial killer off the streets with his faith's rejection of murder as justifiable. The journey doesn't happen until the hero has to confront a struggle that regardless of the resolution will force a change on him.

Goku leaving his home to become stronger and seek strong opponents is a JOURNEY which is what we’re all trying to tell you. Not a journey that necessarily leads to character growth or much complexities but a journey none the less.

This is why the 23rd Tenkaichi Tournament, the Boo arc, and Battle of Gods all work great as endings. The 23rd Tenkaichi Tournament because Goku is finally “strongest under the heavens “ all while keeping Piccolo around to keep him on his toes so he doesn’t get lazy. The Boo arc because Goku finds the opponent who will give him the fight he’s always been looking for that and BoG because even after fulfilling an ancient prophecy Goku’s ascension to Godhood doesn’t amount to jack shit against Beerus and Whis is even stronger. Reminding Goku that there are always mountains to climb .

GT works as an ending too but more so because of its finality and not because it ties itself into the story’s premise.

Look, I get every forum gives long time users an incredible amount of leeway in how they're allowed to treat newcomers but I'm not taking Masenko's bullshit lying down. He wants to insult me, I'm gonna insult him right back.

Get off your victim complex. I never insulted you until you pulled the “Unlike you simple minded plebs I don’t enjoy things that stick to the status quo sorry I want things to change and you’re just happy with whatever you’re given” card, but go off I guess

[ABED]

How the hell is it not any of those things? It's literally Goku's main motivation and a root origin for a good chunk of the plotlines.

Motivation isn't a character arc. Watching motivation change can be part of one but alone it's not really anything. Take the "wanting to test yourself" motivation and transplant it into a different genre and it should become pretty obvious. Private detective Hercule Poirot isn't on a journey when he solves crimes. He's just solving crimes because that's how he gets his kicks and pays his rent. The journey doesn't happen until much later when he has to reconcile his need to get a dangerous (and elusive) serial killer off the streets with his faith's rejection of murder as justifiable. The journey doesn't happen until the hero has to confront a struggle that regardless of the resolution will force a change on him.

Now you are just being an asshat, dude.

Look, I get every forum gives long time users an incredible amount of leeway in how they're allowed to treat newcomers but I'm not taking Masenko's bullshit lying down. He wants to insult me, I'm gonna insult him right back.

It is a journey's but without a destination. Goku is always trying to get better and as long as he's progressing as a fighter, he's progressing towards his goal of becoming the best fighter he can be.

[Lord Beerus]

How the hell is it not any of those things? It's literally Goku's main motivation and a root origin for a good chunk of the plotlines.

Motivation isn't a character arc. Watching motivation change can be part of one but alone it's not really anything. Take the "wanting to test yourself" motivation and transplant it into a different genre and it should become pretty obvious. Private detective Hercule Poirot isn't on a journey when he solves crimes. He's just solving crimes because that's how he gets his kicks and pays his rent. The journey doesn't happen until much later when he has to reconcile his need to get a dangerous (and elusive) serial killer off the streets with his faith's rejection of murder as justifiable. The journey doesn't happen until the hero has to confront a struggle that regardless of the resolution will force a change on him.

Now you are just being an asshat, dude.

Look, I get every forum gives long time users an incredible amount of leeway in how they're allowed to treat newcomers but I'm not taking Masenko's bullshit lying down. He wants to insult me, I'm gonna insult him right back.

It is a journey's but without a destination. Goku is always trying to get better and as long as he's progressing as a fighter, he's progressing towards his goal of becoming the best fighter he can be.

Is it really journey if there's no destination? That feels more like walking aimlessly. I mean, the whole point a journey is that you have an idea of where you want to go.

I think Goku is a character who doesn't care about being the strongest. Hell, I don't think he's ever really given a concrete reason as why he seeks to become better martial artist. He just find genuine enjoyment in martial arts. In fact, I think he's usually more motivated by the potential of the competition, rather than what he can personally achieve.

[Kinokima]

Motivation isn't a character arc. Watching motivation change can be part of one but alone it's not really anything. Take the "wanting to test yourself" motivation and transplant it into a different genre and it should become pretty obvious. Private detective Hercule Poirot isn't on a journey when he solves crimes. He's just solving crimes because that's how he gets his kicks and pays his rent. The journey doesn't happen until much later when he has to reconcile his need to get a dangerous (and elusive) serial killer off the streets with his faith's rejection of murder as justifiable. The journey doesn't happen until the hero has to confront a struggle that regardless of the resolution will force a change on him.



Look, I get every forum gives long time users an incredible amount of leeway in how they're allowed to treat newcomers but I'm not taking Masenko's bullshit lying down. He wants to insult me, I'm gonna insult him right back.

It is a journey's but without a destination. Goku is always trying to get better and as long as he's progressing as a fighter, he's progressing towards his goal of becoming the best fighter he can be.

Is it really journey if there's no destination? That feels more like walking aimlessly. I mean, the whole point a journey is that you have an idea of where you want to go.

I think Goku is a character who doesn't care about being the strongest. Hell, I don't think he's ever really given a concrete reason as why he seeks to become better martial artist. He just find genuine enjoyment in martial arts. In fact, I think he's usually more motivated by the potential of the competition, rather than what he can personally achieve.

But it’s not the destination but the journey that matters in the end. Goku’s destination would technically be the top of the ladder but the premise of Dragon Ball is there is always someone better out there so his journey should always be ongoing. And I think that is how Goku wants it. I don’t think he would really want to reach the top. He wants to always meet a stronger opponent. Like you said he craves the competition for the competition sake.

[jjgp1112]

It's not a journey so much as a chase. Goku's chasing the next challenge until he can't do it anymore. I liked the Cell ending as the end of the series for the same reason. He dies after facing somebody too strong for him but fuck it, there's more challenges even in the other world!

Dragon Ball's themes and goals are so loose and vague that the best possible endings are either total finality like GT and Cell to some extent, or a simple closing of the book on a note that reminds you of what Goku's all about.

[ABED]

I wrote "the best fighter he can be" not "the best fighter". He's not aimless. He has a very specific goal. He wants to be the best fighter he can be. I understand where you're coming from but Goku absolutely has a goal even if it's not a fixed endpoint. Goku isn't out there to be better than anyone. Rather, he sees someone stronger and it excites him that there's a possibility to be better since he has proof there's a higher level to achieve.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Goku leaving his home to become stronger and seek strong opponents is a JOURNEY which is what we’re all trying to tell you. Not a journey that necessarily leads to character growth or much complexities but a journey none the less.

I mean by that standard I guess Hercule was on a journey when he traveled to the English countryside to solve a kidnapping attempt. But I guess the problem is with me expecting a character arc to not be a literal journey from point A to point B.

Get off your victim complex. I never insulted you until you pulled the “Unlike you simple minded plebs I don’t enjoy things that stick to the status quo sorry I want things to change and you’re just happy with whatever you’re given” card, but go off I guess

lmao that's what you read in my comments but I'm the one with the victim complex. You take care, Masenko.

Dragon Ball's themes and goals are so loose and vague that the best possible endings are either total finality like GT and Cell to some extent, or a simple closing of the book on a note that reminds you of what Goku's all about.

Which is why I'm saying an episodic format would work much better for DB if it can only ever be the Goku show. Superman's still running but as far as I'm concerned Superman's story ended in "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?" If the protag is bigger than the story he's in then the story shouldn't take up as much space as these 30 episode storylines. It should be just long enough to reinforce what's most important about the protagonist. Imagine the ToP as a 70 minute film that's just Goku staring down the combined might of eight universes. It's epic and grand and you don't get bogged down in nonsense like Gohan briefly feeling angsty over what was happening or Roshi wanting to molest some magical girl. You can keep the attention on whole worlds slowly realizing they'll need to bend and break to accomodate Goku's love for battle.

That's why silver age Superman was the way he was. If spectacle is what's being sold, put it front and center. Otherwise you end up picking up fans like me who care about garbage like symbolism and how characters feel XD

[jjgp1112]

We're not saying that you can't focus on other characters. It's that Goku is the primary character and without him the story has no anchor or focus. A great way to tank shows with even the strongest top-to-bottom casts is to remove the main character and replace them with somebody else (see: Basically every show where that's happened). What's it even really about, now?

The main character of any show that's not explicitly an ensemble is going to be bigger than it.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

We're not saying that you can't focus on other characters.

That has in fact been said in this thread more than once.

It's that Goku is the primary character and without him the story has no anchor or focus. A great way to tank shows with even the strongest top-to-bottom casts is to remove the main character and replace them with somebody else (see: Basically every show where that's happened). What's it even really about, now?

The main character of any show that's not explicitly an ensemble is going to be bigger than it.

Spin offs work just fine when they develop their own identity. Look at Frasier (a Cheers spinoff) or the Gundam franchise (which features both direct sequels and reimaginings).

Besides, when was the last time Dragon Ball was able to tell a side story to completion? The Saiyan Arc where Piccolo accepts the loss of his demonic nature and sacrifices himself to protect Gohan. Your own summary of the series places Goku's "chase" at the center of Dragon Ball which doesn't really leave any room for people who can't keep up with him. And Dragon Ball has flattened the idea of "power." There's no diversity in ability or oppurtunity to specialize. Even Hit's timeskip was ultimately just a boring gimmick to muscle through.

Which is to say, Dragon Ball doesn't have room enough for side characters. This is probably why the Vegeta/Gohan arguments go as far back as they do. There's a very obvious problem in keeping characters around to just sit around and gawk especially when those characters have more dramatic potential than the protagonist.

[UltraInstinctRorikon]

That Cheers and Frasier comparison is very apt.

I was hooked on this potential this series was going to take with that build up. Like no one actively hates Goku per se it's just the story was trying to give us something fresh and interesting and Toriyama undermines his own work in a haphazard way putting a tarnished spot on this series.

[jjgp1112]

...aren't we talking about mainline Dragon Ball and NOT spin-offs? We've been through this already. Unlike Gundam or any of these other properties people try to lump Dragon Ball in with, DB has been one single story for its entire 37 year existence, and all the ancillary material we've seen beyond it have just been video games and merch. Please don't bring up Heroes, a literal card commercial, again.

Frasier isn't a sequel to Cheers. It's a show about a bit character that happens to take place in the same universe that can stand entirely on its own. They even change details from Cheers. You could watch Frasier without ever having been a fan of Cheers (I would know).

[Kinokima]

Vegeta is my favorite character but I don’t think he would make a better main protagonist than Goku. Vegeta is pretty much tied to Goku’s journey to begin with since he wants to surpass Goku. I am just not sure how Vegeta could be the main character without Goku. He plays off Goku.

And I think it’s the same with Gohan. Watching Gohan grow up was great in my opinion. But now that he is grown up he is a pretty strait laced hero. I would like Gohan to do more in the story but I don’t think he could carry the series on his own. He just isn’t as unique as Goku. Goku is well an alien. Gohan is more human.

I think people who want another character as the lead just want something different but are not really thinking about how it would actually work.

[Skar]

Is it really journey if there's no destination? That feels more like walking aimlessly. I mean, the whole point a journey is that you have an idea of where you want to go.

I think it's interesting that there is sort of a destination now. In the original series, a new threat would emerge that shows Goku there's still room to grow. In DBS, Beerus defeated Goku in the first movie/arc and everything after it is leading up to Goku's goal to surpass Beerus. All the arcs in-between weren't really planned and I think the gap between SSJG and Beerus was retconned but the story still kept that goal.

I'm curious how that will lead into EoZ. Even if Goku eventually surpasses Beerus, there's still the Angels, Grand Priest, and Zeno. They made a point that GoDs were once mortals who trained to reach that position so maybe the deities above them are considered like cosmic entities or something that are impossible for mortals to reach. I don't know but I think something happens that leads to Goku deciding to train Uub rather than continue training with Whis to surpass him and everyone above him. My theory is that Goku becomes the strongest mortal including GoDs who were mortals at one point and becomes excited to train Uub, the only remaining mortal that might have the potential to match him.

[jjgp1112]

Vegeta is my favorite character but I don’t think he would make a better main protagonist than Goku. Vegeta is pretty much tied to Goku’s journey to begin with since he wants to surpass Goku. I am just not sure how Vegeta could be the main character without Goku. He plays off Goku.

And I think it’s the same with Gohan. Watching Gohan grow up was great in my opinion. But now that he is grown up he is a pretty strait laced hero. I would like Gohan to do more in the story but I don’t think he could carry the series on his own. He just isn’t as unique as Goku. Goku is well an alien. Gohan is more human.

I think people who want another character as the lead just want something different but are not really thinking about how it would actually work.

This is where I stand. I'm more interested in Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Trunks as characters but I also know their roles in the story. For instance, Vegeta being the big hero would be a massive disservice to his character because part of what makes him compelling is his perpetual second fiddle-ness. A show where he's the primary focus would need entirely different narrative purposes to be worthwhile. A good show about Vegeta would probably have to focus more on his growth as a person than fighting and beating strong guys (Looking at you, Bringer of Death).

Dragon Ball's not pro wrestling or a soap opera. Sure, the rest of the cast does shuffle in and out of focus like a soap opera, but guess which character remains in focus the whole 10 year run save for four chapters?

[MasenkoHA]

That Cheers and Frasier comparison is very apt.

It’s only apt if you’re requesting for a spin off.

Would you like to see a Jaco series? Or a Pride Troopers series? Or a Satan High School series that focuses on teenage Gohan, Videl, Sharpner, Erasa and others?

There’s quite a difference between wanting to see a spin off and wanting Dragon Ball to suddenly switch focus to Gohan or another non-Goku character.