How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

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How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by jamiljamtheman » Sat Jul 16, 2022 1:09 pm

As you may know, in broader pop culture one of the major things Dragon Ball (Z’s anime, in particular) is known for are famously long battles with lots of yelling. To some, like myself before I got into Dragon Ball, the episode count along with this reputation is somewhat intimidating to consider trying to jump into.

I ended up choosing to watch DBGT first in major part because it was significantly shorter than Z, and I didn’t necessarily want to start with Dragon Ball (Super didn’t quite exist yet, though Battle of Gods came out around that time).

However, since watching GT and the Z movies, and getting into dragon ball as a whole, the pacing of the anime series has been a major sticking point for me. This opinion applies to Z and Super, as the early humor (particularly roshi) and that Bulma is on the losing end of every joke in Dragon Ball’s earliest episodes are what turned me off to that series, not the pacing. I intend to watch some of the later arcs in pre-Z Dragon Ball eventually. But I’ve tried to watch Dragon Ball Z and Kai, and in both cases the Namek/Frieza arc pacing stopped me. With Dragon Ball Super, while it’s not as slow as Z, the pacing of most arcs is also a factor in why I haven’t watched a lot of it and chose to read the manga instead. Even GT’s pacing isn’t that good, though I preferred it more than Z’s.

With the possibility of a new Super series on the horizon, I’m not sure I’ll even want to jump into something that’s inevitably going to be paced worse than the movies and manga (the recent manga arcs’ pacing is kind of slow as it is, who knows how the anime adaptations will be??). No doubt, I will give it a chance and try anyway, but I’m worried.

How do you guys feel about all the anime series’ pacing?

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Sat Jul 16, 2022 2:15 pm

The pacing for the original Dragon Ball is decent. Things don't actually move that much faster than Z but it makes better use of its filler so it doesn't feel too stretched out.

Pacing for the Z anime is pretty messy. It started okay with the Saiyan arc but is horrible during the Namek and Freeza arcs. It shows improvement with Android and Cell arcs (though they could really drag at times) but it slows down again during the Boo arc.

GT benefits from not having a manga to wait on so the pacing is actually pretty good.

The DBS anime's pacing is really inconsistent. It can be blazing fast one episode but Freeza arc slow the next.
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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Adamant » Sat Jul 16, 2022 2:42 pm

The thing about the pacing in the Freeza+ parts of the series is that the main plots are so long and interconnected there's very few places for the anime adaptation to take a break and do its own thing for a couple episodes without it just feeling like the ongoing story slowed down to a crawl. Especially the Freeza arc suffers from this, after Bulma, Gohan and Kuririn land on Namek there's no real natural break in the ongoing story until Namek explodes, and every attempt Toei makes to fill the space between the scenes in the manga feels like pointless crap that just slows the story down.

Just comes with the territory of adapting an ongoing story as its being written.
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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Shaddy » Sun Jul 17, 2022 2:45 am

Image

I have never been comfortable with the speed of almost any Dragon Ball television series. This is a me thing, but fights that take longer than one-and-a-half episodes almost always find a way to bore me. And yes, this is very silly for a guy who loves shonen storytelling, but what can I say? Dragon Ball is strong enough in other aspects that I push through anyway.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Ashur » Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:35 am

Dragon Ball has perfect pacing, incredibly atmospheric, takes it's time to set the mood, let the animation, music, etc. shine, to deliver on the emotion.

Dragon Ball Z is more of the same, even though the pacing becomes slower during the Goku vs Frieza fight, it never bothered me because i always saw it as the most important fight so it should be a long, stretched out event that took a toll on both fighters, it all served the tension, however during the Buu Arc the pacing goes into a nosedive given the action becomes mindless during the Super Buu fights, with the constant regenerating, etc. if there's nothing to hold it in place, long and drawn out action in itself isn't engaging, however, outside the Super Buu segments, i love how DBZ is paced.

Dragon Ball GT is just like Z and DB except it doesn't have the need to stretch out, however, the fight between SSJ4 Goku and Syn Shenron does feel drawn out for some reason, it is not that engaging, but it has solid pacing, emotional scenes don't linger on too much, action doesn't go too fast and it has weight, etc.

Dragon Ball Kai has awkward pacing, to say the least, it speeds through all the plot points making them feel sudden and without weight, the fact that they sped up the entire first half of the original story says a lot, overall, Kai's pacing is a step down, during the Cell and Buu arcs it becomes better, especially in Buu, but during the Saiyan and Frieza arcs it just feels like it wants to get it over with as soon as possible, like the people behind it didin't have any passion for the project.

Dragon Ball Super has some instances where it has a good pacing with good build up, but many times the tension isn't felt in those build up scenes, not sure why, maybe it's because the story is mediocre or because the framing isn't correct, but it was far more evident in this that they were buying for time for the episode to end than in earlier series.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes... I can't even keep up with what's going on.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Jul 19, 2022 10:18 am

Ashur wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:35 am .

Dragon Ball Kai has awkward pacing, to say the least, it speeds through all the plot points making them feel sudden and without weight, the fact that they sped up the entire first half of the original story says a lot, overall, Kai's pacing is a step down, during the Cell and Buu arcs it becomes better, especially in Buu, but during the Saiyan and Frieza arcs it just feels like it wants to get it over with as soon as possible, like the people behind it didin't have any passion for the project.

It didn't speed through. It was just trying to cut most of the anime only material (albeit not doing a very good job) .

The Buu saga just ends up keeping half the anime filler anyways because Toei had extra no fucks to give at that point

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Ashur » Tue Jul 19, 2022 4:41 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 10:18 am
Ashur wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:35 am .

Dragon Ball Kai has awkward pacing, to say the least, it speeds through all the plot points making them feel sudden and without weight, the fact that they sped up the entire first half of the original story says a lot, overall, Kai's pacing is a step down, during the Cell and Buu arcs it becomes better, especially in Buu, but during the Saiyan and Frieza arcs it just feels like it wants to get it over with as soon as possible, like the people behind it didin't have any passion for the project.

It didn't speed through. It was just trying to cut most of the anime only material (albeit not doing a very good job) .

The Buu saga just ends up keeping half the anime filler anyways because Toei had extra no fucks to give at that point
No, it's not just the elimination of filler fight sequences, the pacing of the fights is much faster, especially by cutting down the build-up scenes and staredowns, but the action itself is also faster.

At least that's how it feels via my multiple watches of both Z and Kai.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Koitsukai » Mon Jul 25, 2022 1:12 pm

A recent rewatch of the Namek arc reminded me that the anime is excruciatingly slow. Every chance they get to stall, they would spend 10 minutes on a flashback. About the saiyans or about stuff from the past, I've watched Piccolo and Goku fighting several times, not just Jr, but old Piccolo, too.

It's like talking to Grampa Simpson, every chance he gets, he'll derail the conversation and talk about something else. You are following the story and then it's "but Goku, oh Goku, he's so strong now, I remember when he was a kid... "... and then Big Green is on screen, and again: "Piccolo was bad, and then he fought Goku, lost... had another kid, and that kid also fought Goku...". Fine, now let's move on please? oh no, now let's see what Chichi and Yajirobe are up to.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Koitsukai » Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:04 pm

To expand on my point, the final portion of the Freeza-Goku fight has flashbacks of... the Freeza-Goku fight :lol: :lol:... Freeza having 7 minute nightmares of something that happened one episode ago.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by The Accountant » Thu Jul 28, 2022 8:19 pm

The pacing for the first episodes of DBZ is really good, imo. It definitely slows down in the latter half of the Namek saga. I love Dragon Ball, so it doesn't bother me. But for someone watching it for the first time, it's really going to kill the intrigue.

I'm hearing a lot of hate for the Kai pacing. But personally, I think it's awesome.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Wrigglything » Sun Jul 31, 2022 11:49 am

I feel that Kai felt a little bit slow at times too, even during the pre Buu stuff. Maybe it's because I've started reading manga more but compared to a chapter of the manga and the TV show, I'd rather read two or three chapters than an entire episode if I can. Super can feel similarly sloppy more times than I would like, although sometimes it can have appropriate pacing too at the best of times.
With that said, it's been years since I sat down for a full viewing from start to end, and given the media I'm interested in watching, I'm not so sure if it's a path I would like to take once more.
But for someone watching it for the first time, it's really going to kill the intrigue.
Unfortunately a lot of long running series, especially those with anime adaptations made around the same time as the manga, would suffer from this. A reason why I can't get into One Piece or Naruto, really.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by JulieYBM » Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:01 am

I think good directing can certainly help with the pacing but good gravy do I wish they would have done more anime original story arcs and such for the first two series and then done more mini-arcs not directly drawing from the Toriyama outlines for Dragon Ball Super. The best episodes of Super were the ones where the cartoon staff were doing their own thing. I really loved the two-parter where Hit came back to assassinate Gokuu.
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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by MasenkoHA » Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:54 am

Dragon Ball- The pacing is mostly fine. It slogs quite a bit during the pirate cave portion but nothing too terrible outside of that.


Dragon Ball Z- Its pacing problems are the stuff of legend but even then its mostly the Goku vs Freeza battle and portions of the Boo saga.

Dragon Ball GT- Tis fine

Dragon Ball Kai- On the one hand the Saiyan arc moves a bit too fast. Gohan suffers from a lack of character development because of it. On the other hand the Freeza vs Goku battle seems to drag even worse than it did in Z despite being shorter. I think because the Z version has a lot of cut away to the supporting characters so it wasn't so focused on just the action. Other stuff was happning. What I'm saying is Kai might be the actual worst pacing wise.


Dragon Ball Super- The first two arcs drag, for somewhat obvious reasons. I seem to remember the Zamasu arc having that "Good Dende when is this shit going to end?" feeling. Otherwise fine. I was somewhat impressed the ToP arc didn't feel too slow despite being set in one location for 40 ish episodes.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Saiya6Cit » Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:53 pm

Let's not forget it was the 80s and Toriyama had been influenced by old classic westerns and old chinese hero movies which tend to have that slow pace as back then it was considered to be thrilling, now it is considered to be boring. Think of it on how before it would take a couple some time before kissing for the first time and now there are things like tinder and such.

I rewatched DB, DBZ and DBGT because of COVID19 lockdown and even made more people to follow me :lol:

And I had not watched it for like... uh.. let's say 20years. Yes, I realized how terribly slowed paced it was, but remember back then there was no netflix, not even internet, we had to wait til the next day to watch what would happen so we would savour every second of it. Times have simple changed and the same way we don't use the radio to tell stories no more, we won't have classic anime, ever again.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by OmegaRockman » Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:47 am

Dragon Ball - generally moves at a pretty good pace, especially in the early arcs, but there is the occasional episode that feels a tiny bit slow. Overall it's pretty good, though.

Dragon Ball Z - SOOOOOO SLOOOOOW. I still really enjoy the show, but God do I feel the padding here. Even when cutting out dedicated filler episodes, the manga scenes being stretched to oblivion and the cutaway filler scenes further extending things doesn't really do it for me. This is why I generally don't watch OG Z anymore aside from clips of the best scenes.

Dragon Ball GT - From what I remember, GT moves along okay due to not needing to follow the manga anymore. However, I do recall the Ultimate DB Hunt having boring and even infuriating episodes, but that has more to do with bad writing than the show's pacing. The rest of the show is definitely better and the pacing stays pretty tolerable, with my main issues coming from dull episodes rather than bad pacing.

Dragon Ball Kai - Now here's a well-paced show. I understand that the Saiyan arc editing may feel a little wonky to some, but I feel like they really hit their stride with the Freeza and Cell arcs. Even then, I think the Saiyan arc is great and I don't really miss the filler. I get it: a lot of folks like Gohan's development in those episodes, but it doesn't do a whole lot for me.

Even Boo doesn't move along too badly despite keeping more filler. The only times the kept filler REALLY bothered me were the party episode toward the end of the International Cut (which is easily skippable) and the Hell filler, especially the Oni discussing a filler episode that never happened in Kai. The Japanese Cut also has the weird fast-forward button issue for those starting episodes (culminating in the travesty that was Goku coming back to that God awful Disco track; thank God the International Cut fixed that), but I don't think that ruined the show either. The International Cut is better for having more room to breathe and the more competent music placement. Aside from those issues, I quite like Kai's Boo arc.

Overall Kai moves along so well to me, and it's one of the main reasons I recommend it to new fans even if they're planning to watch subbed.

Dragon Ball Super - Super generally moves along well for me aside from - and say it with me folks - the movie retellings. It really feels like old school DBZ padding for time, especially with stuff like the Rock Paper Scissors match taking an eternity. Thankfully the in-between episodes are actually pretty good, but just about everything outside of that I can feel how desperately they're trying to stretch those 90-minute movie scripts into television episodes.

After the retellings, I don't feel like there's really a time where episodes felt too much like padding other than maybe some of the ToP, but at the same time I haven't watched Super back to front outside of a week-to-week format so maybe I'll feel different once I eventually decide to go back and binge the thing (which may be soon since my wife and I are currently going through Kai and are on the home stretch of Boo; we'll see how we feel once we wrap up). Even then, any rewatches of Super will drop the retellings in favor of the actual movies, so that'll always be a point against it.

So yeah, overall thoughts: Kai has the best pacing, Z has the worst, the rest are decent other than certain stretches and the odd episode here and there.
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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Adamant » Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:02 am

Saiya6Cit wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:53 pm Let's not forget it was the 80s and Toriyama had been influenced by old classic westerns and old chinese hero movies which tend to have that slow pace as back then it was considered to be thrilling, now it is considered to be boring.
Toriyama didn't write any shows.
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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Ashur » Fri Aug 05, 2022 4:11 am

OmegaRockman wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:47 am The only times the kept filler REALLY bothered me were the party episode toward the end of the International Cut (which is easily skippable)
B-but that episode is beautiful!

That said i don't get why in the world Kai still has filler, wasn't the point of it to eliminate any non-canon material? Yet they're keeping obviously skippable filler, it's not like it's something that's built-in the main story or something...

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Adamant » Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:52 am

Ashur wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 4:11 am
OmegaRockman wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:47 am The only times the kept filler REALLY bothered me were the party episode toward the end of the International Cut (which is easily skippable)
B-but that episode is beautiful!

That said i don't get why in the world Kai still has filler, wasn't the point of it to eliminate any non-canon material? Yet they're keeping obviously skippable filler, it's not like it's something that's built-in the main story or something...
The point of Boo Kai was to let international licensees purchase the Boo arc a second time because they were throwing money at Toei and begging to be allowed to do so.
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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:15 am

Ashur wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 4:11 am
OmegaRockman wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:47 am The only times the kept filler REALLY bothered me were the party episode toward the end of the International Cut (which is easily skippable)
B-but that episode is beautiful!

That said i don't get why in the world Kai still has filler, wasn't the point of it to eliminate any non-canon material? Yet they're keeping obviously skippable filler, it's not like it's something that's built-in the main story or something...
To add to Adamant's post Toei probably made an agreement with its international licensees that they would provide them with roughly x amount of episodes. Maybe not exactly 69 episodes but something in that ballpark. Less about making a manga cut and more about providing them with "new" episodes of a franchise that did well.

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Re: How do you Feel About the Pacing of each Show?

Post by Ashur » Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:28 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:15 am
Ashur wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 4:11 am
OmegaRockman wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:47 am The only times the kept filler REALLY bothered me were the party episode toward the end of the International Cut (which is easily skippable)
B-but that episode is beautiful!

That said i don't get why in the world Kai still has filler, wasn't the point of it to eliminate any non-canon material? Yet they're keeping obviously skippable filler, it's not like it's something that's built-in the main story or something...
To add to Adamant's post Toei probably made an agreement with its international licensees that they would provide them with roughly x amount of episodes. Maybe not exactly 69 episodes but something in that ballpark. Less about making a manga cut and more about providing them with "new" episodes of a franchise that did well.
I see, well that explains it, even though it still infuriates me because it goes against what the purpose of Kai originally was.

It's not that important anyways, whenever i want to see the anime version of Saiyans-Buu, i always just pick Z unless they are transmitting Kai on television.

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