Is anyone annoyed that the revival happened?

[MasenkoHA]

The idea of “I can’t enjoy this now that it’s not part of the main timeline” has always been ridiculous.

I don't understand the over-fixation on "canon" in general in any fandom. I don't need a company telling me what I can or can't enjoy because of how "important" it is.

Fans also obsess over this shit way more than the companies and creators do.



Fans will be like “How would the third Z movie fit into canon? It’s pretty much impossible! It’s so non-canon it hurts! They should all be on Namek or dead!”


And Toei is like “Here’s a movie where Gohan gets a cute little dragon friend and Goku fights his doppelgänger who is another evil Saiyan. La dee dee da”

[JulieYBM]

Continuity is so stifling. You can tell few continuity people create stuff of their own. Like, sometimes you want to use continuity and other times you just want to write Gokuu being a fucking DILF who supports his son's taking care of a pet dragon.

[TheGreatness25]

Spoiler:

It’s true. As soon as Super was announced Shueisha sent their men to every Dragon Ball fans home and destroyed all their GT merchandise and dvds and vhs and wiped out any episode’s they had own their hard drive. They then wiped out all memories Men in Black style. In fact, I’m confused about what we’re talking about right now. What’s a GT?

Oh, come on. You know what I mean. GT became obsolete and would not be talked about, mentioned, promoted, or remembered by the series in any way. Essentially, the story didn't happen and the 18 (?) years of having GT's continuity, figuring it in, purchasing their releases, kind of becomes less than. They spent years selling GT to us only to make it meaningless (like Funimation did with their own dub when Kai was coming out). It almost flaunts how much of a sucker you are for supporting it.

It was just blatant. I understand why Super didn't take place after GT. But right from the start, the story made GT's existence in the continuity impossible. It was hard enough being a GT fan where everyone ripped it apart... and then seemed like the creators and gatekeepers of the series put the final nail in the coffin.

Again, I'm over it at this point, but that was my feeling back then.

While Super did "kill" any chance of GT being part of the main continuity, the revival ended up benefiting GT in other ways. It produced videogames such as XV or Heroes were GT characters, and specially SS4 have gotten a lot of screentime.

I feel like it's a very small thing. This DLC was basically an afterthought and included to stretch some shelf life out off a game that didn't depend on GT at all.

The idea of “I can’t enjoy this now that it’s not part of the main timeline” has always been ridiculous.

Why is that? Who wants to feel like they're watching something that is totally inconsequential in the owners' own eyes? It's not about canon; it's about feeling like you're supporting something that the creators themselves have seemingly given up on. They spent years telling us that this was their continuation of Dragon Ball and some of us supported it despite popular opinion. Then, they just kind of dumped it and you're left standing like, "Why did I spend all this time accepting it?"

They just gave us a new version of Super Saiyan 4 in the Limit Break characters in Super Dragon Ball Heroes. GT is getting more love now than it did in the mid-2000s.

This was unpredictable at the time Super was coming out, which is when I was really feeling it.


I'm not trying to come off combative or anything. It's just a feeling that I had. It seems disingenuous to try to sell something for years and then just kind of dump it the second something newer and shinier comes along. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen or shouldn't happen, but at least don't totally dismiss your own work that you convinced others to support. It almost seemed like rubbing it in by having GT impossible in the first few episodes of Super. And this is subjective, so if I was the only one on Earth who had that bitter taste in my mouth, then so be it. But it's still what I felt and so I'm sharing.

[Demon Prince Piccolo]

There's still nothing to say you can't accept GT as a proper Dragon Ball continuation, regardless of the current shiny, new product.

[MasenkoHA]

Why is that? Who wants to feel like they're watching something that is totally inconsequential in the owners' own eyes? It's not about canon; it's about feeling like you're supporting something that the creators themselves have seemingly given up on. They spent years telling us that this was their continuation if Dragon Ball and some of us supported it despite popular opinion. Then, they just kind of dumped it and you're left standing like, "Why did I spend all this time accepting it?"

Ffs its frothy entertainment not holy sacred text. You can literally ignore Super and still treat GT as the true sequel to Z if you want. Should fans disregard the movies because most of them were clearly made without any intent of fitting in the main story? Oh hey the Bardock tv special is well regarded but I can’t enjoy it now that a Broly movie said it didn’t happen

They didn’t give up on GT. It was a thing that existed to keep the Dragon Ball money train chugging for another year. And when they decided to cash in on that sweet nostalgia money Toriyama didn’t want to be bogged down by making sure the new series fit into Toei’s original anime.

I'm not trying to come off combative or anything. It's just a feeling that I had. It seems disingenuous to try to sell something for years and then just kind of dump it the second something newer and shinier comes along. And not just dump it, but pour gasoline on it and set it on fire. Almost seemed like rubbing it in by having GT impossible in the first few episodes of Super. And this is subjective, so if I was the only one on Earth who had that bitter taste in my mouth, then so be it. But it's still what I felt and so I'm sharing.

This is just really overdramatic. GT didn’t stop existing. It’s just not part of Super’s continuity.

[TheGreatness25]

Dude.

I'm not trying to be overdramatic. And I'm not throwing around dismissive phrases like "FFS" and whatnot. It's strange to me that someone is trying to change how I feel regarding the handing of a media property. If I can't come on here and share my thoughts and opinions in a thread that asked for its participants' thoughts and opinions, then I guess I'm done with this topic. Sheesh.

[JulieYBM]

I don't care about what Toriyama thinks above what I think. I need to be convinced to change my mind and even then I don't need my love of apples to be defeated by my love of baby spinach. I like Super and I like GT, all for different reasons, just like how I like the Hunt for the Dragon Balls and the Saiyan arc for different reasons or Naruto and Black Clover at the same time.

Does it bring me joy? If so, keep it. If not, whatever I have all this joy to focus on.

[jjgp1112]

Toei is definitely trying to have its cake and eat it too with GT.

But overall, there are some elements of the revival that have hurt the overall DB continuity more than helped (*cough* Minus *cough*) and I feel like the highs aren't high enough to cancel out my various annoyances so yeah...I guess the revival as a while was uneccessary. Let Dragon Ball die.

Then again, I'm a 28 year old man who nowadays only watches DB once in a blue moon. Finally have my life together, and largely post here out of pure habit...so I don't think the revival can quote reach outright annoyance for me

[Demon Prince Piccolo]

Dude.

I'm not trying to be overdramatic. And I'm not throwing around dismissive phrases like "FFS" and whatnot. It's strange to me that someone is trying to change how I feel regarding the handing of a media property. If I can't come on here and share my thoughts and opinions in a thread that asked for its participants' thoughts and opinions, then I guess I'm done with this topic. Sheesh.

I don't think Masenko (or anyone) is trying to tell you how to feel. It's just that you don't have to stop enjoying GT if you've always enjoyed GT just because Toei is milking the Super train for all it's worth. I consider GT to still be a continuation of Z, and I didn't watch it until a year ago. In some ways, I feel like the series is even more special now. It actually went past the 10-year timespan between Boo-EoZ, changed characters' outfits/looks to show passage of time, functions as a true ending, not to mention the beautiful JP soundtrack; idk, it did things that I appreciate a lot more in hindsight with the influx of Super-related content/merch.

But fair enough.

[Robo4900]

I'm not annoyed the revival happened. Honestly, when I heard about the 2008 OVA and later Battle of Gods, I was pretty pleased. Dragon Ball is something I've always enjoyed, and more Dragon Ball sounds good to me.

I am annoyed that revived Dragon Ball has pretty much been "That 2008 OVA's reliance on being a disposable little nugget of nostalgia worked pretty well, huh? I wonder how far we can take that same approach..."
It's very easy to say a Dragon Ball revival wasn't necessary (as is the case with any revival, arguably any mass media at all), but I don't resent it happening, and I don't think "it wasn't necessary" holds water as an argument. The problem isn't that reviving Dragon Ball is inherently a bad idea, the problem is that Dragon Ball's revival era has been about the safest, most soulless approach to new Dragon Ball anyone could have possibly imagined, and on the whole it's just not been very good (primarily just because the majority of it was the Super anime, which was clearly extremely rushed in the writing department and hampered by inconsistent quality of animation, resulting in a poor end product).

DB Super Broly was very good though, and I hope the next movie continues where it left off in terms of feeling fresh and being... good.

If I was to give a quick list of things I'd change about the revival era:

• Resurrection F should have been scrapped immediately after it was first proposed, and retooled into a new, wholly original sequel to BoG, ideally set after the end of the original manga. Also, no new transformation needed to be introduced here, that was dumb.
• The Super anime should have been given about 6 months of further pre-production time, it should have been seasonal rather than continuous (26 episodes a year instead of 52), and it should have been set after the end of the original manga.
• Vegeta's evolution at the end of the original manga should have been paid attention to, Goku shouldn't be so immature, various characters who have no reason to be around anymore (Tenshinhan, Yamucha, Roshi) should be discarded entirely.
• In fact, on a similar note, the cast of new Dragon Ball should stop being so bloated. Focus your stories! Super Broly and GT both did this right...
• Dragon Ball needs to move forward. Have old characters move on, have new characters come in, change the situation in a significant way in the course of every arc so it doesn't feel like there's a status quo. One of Super's big problems is everything's stagnated. There hasn't been a significant change of dynamic or situation since Battle of Gods. One of the core tenets of Super is it's a nostalgia product that refuses to change anything, and sadly this is also one of its biggest flaws; but it's not so essential that you couldn't fix it, or course-correct away from it. (In fact, Broly and Super Hero have both figured this out it seems; Super Hero in particular appears to have advanced time forward by several years and is introducing Pan as a main character)
• Toei's writers should be unafraid of saying "No" to Toriyama. No one has made as much good Dragon Ball as Toriyama, but no one's made as much bad Dragon Ball as him either. His editors and such in the '80s and '90s helped him stay straight during the original run, Toei's current writers should do the same; if he has an idea the writers don't have any faith in, they shouldn't be afraid to tell him that and work with him to turn out something more workable. Toriyama still has good Dragon Ball stories in him, but just blindly saying yes to his first idea every time is not how you get that. The manga constantly changed story directions when Toriyama realised a story wasn't working out, so why would anyone think Toriyama's first idea will always be a winner from start to finish without any changes?
• Have other Toei writers pitch storylines as well. Toriyama can and should advise, give feedback, even rewrite if he feels like it, but even though Toriyama is the voice of Dragon Ball in a lot of ways, he's far from the only person who's ever written good Dragon Ball. The driving episode, Z movie 13, Gohan and the robot, Sleeping Princess in Devil Castle, and various other classic pieces of the anime were written by other people with his sign-off. Sure, if you can get Toriyama storylines that's good, but the way Dragon Ball worked back in the '80s and '90s is it kept things fresh and new. One easy way to keep things fresh and new is to invite the ideas of new writers.

Okay, that list turned out way bigger than I thought it would. Still, it ends things on a positive note, I think.

[MasenkoHA]

Dude.

I'm not trying to be overdramatic. And I'm not throwing around dismissive phrases like "FFS" and whatnot. It's strange to me that someone is trying to change how I feel regarding the handing of a media property. If I can't come on here and share my thoughts and opinions in a thread that asked for its participants' thoughts and opinions, then I guess I'm done with this topic. Sheesh.

I don't think Masenko (or anyone) is trying to tell you how to feel. It's just that you don't have to stop enjoying GT if you've always enjoyed GT just because Toei is milking the Super train for all it's worth. I consider GT to still be a continuation of Z, and I didn't watch it until a year ago. In some ways, I feel like the series is even more special now. It actually went past the 10-year timespan between Boo-EoZ, changed characters' outfits/looks to show passage of time, functions as a true ending, not to mention the beautiful JP soundtrack; idk, it did things that I appreciate a lot more in hindsight with the influx of Super-related content/merch.

But fair enough.

Also alternate continuities are a thing that exist and aren’t unique to Dragon Ball. Look at Halloween. Not even counting Halloween 3 being its own thing and the Rob Zombie movies existing there’s 3 different timelines

1: Halloween 78>Halloween 2>Halloween 4>Halloween 5>Halloween 6

2. Halloween 78>Halloween 2>H20>Halloween Resurrection

3. Halloween 78>Halloween 2018>Halloween Kills>Halloween Ends


People going to theaters to see Halloween Kills don’t have to burn their copies of Halloween 2 and H20 “because those movies don’t count anymore” its just understood when watching that particular movie that those movies stories didn’t occur in this movie’s timeline.


GT exist as a sequel to Z and it’s never not going to exist. The events just can’t occur in Dragon Ball Super. But hey a lot of anime only filler in Z clashes with Super as well.

[Hellspawn28]

The idea of “I can’t enjoy this now that it’s not part of the main timeline” has always been ridiculous.

I agree. I think people want all of their toys in one big toy box because it's easier for them to know what happens in the main story.

[ABED]

The idea of “I can’t enjoy this now that it’s not part of the main timeline” has always been ridiculous.

I agree. I think people want all of their toys in one big toy box because it's easier for them to know what happens in the main story.

But at that point, they don't care about story, just canon. Stories about about catharsis, canon is about getting the puzzle pieces to fit together.

[goku the krump dancer]

I think there’s a mindset of “I’m heavily invested in these characters and their stories, if what I’m watching doesn’t count then why watch it at all” which I can kinda understand.

[ABED]

I think there’s a mindset of “I’m heavily invested in these characters and their stories, if what I’m watching doesn’t count then why watch it at all” which I can kinda understand.

But I don't think they are as invested in the stories as they are the puzzle.

[Demon Prince Piccolo]

See, that's why I feel like the concept of canon in general can be counterproductive to fans. You'll always have the people who get super-invested in making sure everything fits cleanly in a history book. I can understand it to a point, but when it becomes more about how much something "counts" and less about enjoying the story/characters you've always cared about, I think you've hit a brick wall. I think I had a short spell where I did this with the DBZ movies; then I realized this wasn't fun and decided to enjoy the movies (the ones I like anyway) without worrying about where they placed or if they were canon.

The other issue is that human beings are not infallible. There's usually going to be some inconsistency that pops up somewhere, however trivial, if you want everything to match up perfectly. You usually won't see me pull the "It's all fictional anyway" card, but I feel like it's applicable here.

[ObnoxiousNamek]

I'm not annoyed the revival happened. Honestly, when I heard about the 2008 OVA and later Battle of Gods, I was pretty pleased. Dragon Ball is something I've always enjoyed, and more Dragon Ball sounds good to me.

I am annoyed that revived Dragon Ball has pretty much been "That 2008 OVA's reliance on being a disposable little nugget of nostalgia worked pretty well, huh? I wonder how far we can take that same approach..."
It's very easy to say a Dragon Ball revival wasn't necessary (as is the case with any revival, arguably any mass media at all), but I don't resent it happening, and I don't think "it wasn't necessary" holds water as an argument. The problem isn't that reviving Dragon Ball is inherently a bad idea, the problem is that Dragon Ball's revival era has been about the safest, most soulless approach to new Dragon Ball anyone could have possibly imagined, and on the whole it's just not been very good (primarily just because the majority of it was the Super anime, which was clearly extremely rushed in the writing department and hampered by inconsistent quality of animation, resulting in a poor end product).

DB Super Broly was very good though, and I hope the next movie continues where it left off in terms of feeling fresh and being... good.

If I was to give a quick list of things I'd change about the revival era:

• Resurrection F should have been scrapped immediately after it was first proposed, and retooled into a new, wholly original sequel to BoG, ideally set after the end of the original manga. Also, no new transformation needed to be introduced here, that was dumb.
• The Super anime should have been given about 6 months of further pre-production time, it should have been seasonal rather than continuous (26 episodes a year instead of 52), and it should have been set after the end of the original manga.
• Vegeta's evolution at the end of the original manga should have been paid attention to, Goku shouldn't be so immature, various characters who have no reason to be around anymore (Tenshinhan, Yamucha, Roshi) should be discarded entirely.
• In fact, on a similar note, the cast of new Dragon Ball should stop being so bloated. Focus your stories! Super Broly and GT both did this right...
• Dragon Ball needs to move forward. Have old characters move on, have new characters come in, change the situation in a significant way in the course of every arc so it doesn't feel like there's a status quo. One of Super's big problems is everything's stagnated. There hasn't been a significant change of dynamic or situation since Battle of Gods. One of the core tenets of Super is it's a nostalgia product that refuses to change anything, and sadly this is also one of its biggest flaws; but it's not so essential that you couldn't fix it, or course-correct away from it. (In fact, Broly and Super Hero have both figured this out it seems; Super Hero in particular appears to have advanced time forward by several years and is introducing Pan as a main character)
• Toei's writers should be unafraid of saying "No" to Toriyama. No one has made as much good Dragon Ball as Toriyama, but no one's made as much bad Dragon Ball as him either. His editors and such in the '80s and '90s helped him stay straight during the original run, Toei's current writers should do the same; if he has an idea the writers don't have any faith in, they shouldn't be afraid to tell him that and work with him to turn out something more workable. Toriyama still has good Dragon Ball stories in him, but just blindly saying yes to his first idea every time is not how you get that. The manga constantly changed story directions when Toriyama realised a story wasn't working out, so why would anyone think Toriyama's first idea will always be a winner from start to finish without any changes?
• Have other Toei writers pitch storylines as well. Toriyama can and should advise, give feedback, even rewrite if he feels like it, but even though Toriyama is the voice of Dragon Ball in a lot of ways, he's far from the only person who's ever written good Dragon Ball. The driving episode, Z movie 13, Gohan and the robot, Sleeping Princess in Devil Castle, and various other classic pieces of the anime were written by other people with his sign-off. Sure, if you can get Toriyama storylines that's good, but the way Dragon Ball worked back in the '80s and '90s is it kept things fresh and new. One easy way to keep things fresh and new is to invite the ideas of new writers.

Okay, that list turned out way bigger than I thought it would. Still, it ends things on a positive note, I think.

Agree with everything you said espically the rotating cast thing . In original manga ithe main cast was always changing through the times:

DB: Goku, Yamcha, Krillin, Tien, Chaozu
Z: Goku, Piccolo, Krillin, Gohan
Mid Z: Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Trunks, Piccolo
EoZ: Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, Trunks

and that's how it should be when the plot introduce new stronger characters. We don't need to see humans fighting minions to say "hey remember these guys? just move on with them already. I’d rather see new characters

[MasenkoHA]

I think there’s a mindset of “I’m heavily invested in these characters and their stories, if what I’m watching doesn’t count then why watch it at all” which I can kinda understand.

Everything counts just because it doesn’t all fit in a neat linear puzzle. Toei didn’t just outright ignore Tulles and Hire Dragon just because Z movie 3 doesn’t fit if you tried.

[ZeroIsOurHero]

Yeah, over-obsessing over continuity is pretty dumb. It's somewhat interesting to speculate about all the diverging timelines and stuff like that, but if you can't enjoy something just because it doesn't fit into a made-up timeline you need help.

It's like when Disney decided to make the Star Wars spinoff books non-canon in order to clear the timeline for later movies and TV shows. Fans were pissed because they were big fans of those books and didn't want them to be erased, but all I could think was "You realize they're not really being erased, right?" I mean, they're still publishing the old books, and you can still read them. The only thing that's changed is that they now have a big "Legends" banner on them and the new stuff isn't trying to fit in with it. It's possible to enjoy two conflicting takes on a franchise, isn't it?

[Demon Prince Piccolo]

Yeah, over-obsessing over continuity is pretty dumb. It's somewhat interesting to speculate about all the diverging timelines and stuff like that, but if you can't enjoy something just because it doesn't fit into a made-up timeline you need help.

It's like when Disney decided to make the Star Wars spinoff books non-canon in order to clear the timeline for later movies and TV shows. Fans were pissed because they were big fans of those books and didn't want them to be erased, but all I could think was "You realize they're not really being erased, right?" I mean, they're still publishing the old books, and you can still read them. The only thing that's changed is that they now have a big "Legends" banner on them and the new stuff isn't trying to fit in with it. It's possible to enjoy two conflicting takes on a franchise, isn't it?

Good call on Star Wars. I almost brought it up, but since I've brought it up on other occasions, I didn't want to be annoying . But yeah, it's the same deal, on both sides of the fence. You have the fans upset that their favorite stories are "erased," and then you have the fans who were brought on during canon who won't read or watch something because "it's not canon." For the former, all the stories you love are still there to be read or watched, and for the latter, you're closing yourself off to some great stories with that approach, all for the sake of a canon which isn't that cleanly put together in the first place. Your call, though.