The Cell Arc Progression

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ABED
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The Cell Arc Progression

Post by ABED » Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:01 am

In the thread about Toriyama's style of making it up as he goes, a member said the Cell arc is a good example of Toriyama winging it. They specifically point out the constant change in the central antagonist. It starts off as 19 and 20, then it's revealed the cyborgs Trunks was referring to were 17 and 18, and then along comes Cell.

I wonder where you all stand on this issue. Do you believe that change is organic, or does it feel rudderless?

If Toriyama had gone with his intended story, where do you think it goes? If the Cell never arrives nor even 17 and 18, what twists and turns does the story take? I ask because it would seem if had he stayed with 19 and 20, it's a pretty short story arc.

What are your thoughts?
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by jjgp1112 » Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:15 am

It never stood out to me as strange...if anything fighting Android 19 and 20 right from the start just felt kinda anticlimactic, so it seemed clear to me that it would unfold like the Saiyan saga, where Raditz was only the beginning. Trunks' whole deal about everything not being what it seems was a typical time traveling trope.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Jord » Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:17 am

19 and 20 getting replaced by 17 & 18 felt very rushed and sudden. There wasn't even a hint that there were more Androids until Trunks shows up. I didn't like how Vegeta went from dominating to completely powerless. It made his moment (and SSJ in general) mean nothing.
Seeing as how no one could harm 17&18 it really feels like Toriyama hit the reset button since the Z Warriors went back to planning while 17, 18 and 16 just casually drove around, essentially stalling the story. Basically resetting to where the story was after Trunks' first arrival.

The introduction of Cell was handled a bit better I think. A little more build up went a long way and they way they integrated the Cell and Android storylines felt a lot more organically.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Koitsukai » Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:38 am

While I'm not a big fan of that arc, I liked that progression, it didn't feel like he got cornered and had to come up with something new to me, I feel that way about the Buu arc, but not really here, except for Gohan starting as the uber for the injured and becoming our only hope.
The enemies felt like a bigger fish kept showing up, eating the previous big fish, like every current villain had a predator waiting to appear, it was also funny to see how far behind Goku had been left.

About how it would've been with just fatboy and old guy, I think similar to the future Trunks was living in. Retreading, living to fight another day in a world destroyed by androids.
Goku'd get sick and leave, Geets would come in, lose, maybe die? (he died on Namek, so maybe now Piccolo might die, or one of the earthlings). They could leave their first encounter with one man down, hide, try to fight them back whenever they attack other cities, similar to what Gohan and Trunks were doing, losing people in every fight.
The DBs should disappear, whether Kamiccolo appears or Kami dies, as long as Goku is still alive and can fetch Dende from Namek, it's all good. The final showdown should take place in a destroyed town, and have a recovered Goku with a new power up, or mafuba lol. I doubt Gohan would've been the saviour.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Wrigglything » Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:45 am

I will admit, for as rushed and sudden as the villains handling was (of which the anime seemed to at least try to improve on), it's hard for me to truly imagine the arc without it either. As interesting a concept as a chi sucking robot that can steal and drain energy from our heroes is, I have to agree that the designs for Androids 16-20, as Torishima pointed out, were pretty lackluster to be the main villains of the arc. I think Imperfect Cell would have been a pretty sick way of ending it, but it would probably become too unorthodox and just, quite frankly, not Dragon Ball to be a final boss, given his lanky bug design being more suited for stealthy and horror situations rather than big bombastic action the franchise has become known for, regardless on how anyone feels about it.

So the short of it is that, in my opinion, it probably was a tacked on decision, but that, perhaps accidentally, help create one of the most iconic storylines in all of manga and anime.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by MasenkoHA » Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:50 am

Tbh I think people just hear "Toriyama planned this and then his editor said..." and get in defense mode that influence from higher ups automatically equals bad- even though Dragon Ball probably wouldn't have survived past its first year if Toriyama's editor didn't tell him to make it more like Fist of the North Star-

"It's bad because that's not what Toriyama was going to do"

19 and 20 were lame villains and I don't think Toriyama had any real plans to make them more interesting and while 17 and 18 were an improvement and perfectly fun characters they do feel like a step down from Freeza and Vegeta and Piccolo Daimao. So I am glad we got to Cell.

And nothing really felt that sloppy, as I said in the other thread, messing with the timeline causing changes and a greater threat coming along are both pretty standard storytelling tropes.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Sun Sep 25, 2022 6:17 pm

It's a mixed bag. While it has some obvious hiccups caused by the editorial decisions like Trunks warning about #19 and #20 instead of #17 and #18, the actual storytelling is top tier Dragon Ball from the beginning till about Imperfect Cell's introduction. After that is when it really starts to get messy.

I agree that an antagonist switcheroo was inevitable, it's just a question of how long Dr. Gero would've stuck around for before either Toriyama got bored or his editors stepped in with harsher words. If it wasn't the porcelain twins or the bug monster, it would've been something else at some point. There really weren't many other places the story could go, though maybe Gero could've still played a larger role.

And I absolutely agree with Masenko that some people really overreact to editorial interference, as if the whole series wasn't always fuelled by Toriyama's editors telling him what to do (i.e. doing their job). Artistic integrity is cool, we get it, but there's nothing wrong with giving them a guiding hand, especially when they have magazines to sell.

It's hard for me to ignore that Cell's introduction is an almost exact recreation of #19 and #20's, except the civilians are sucked up instead of blown up (admittedly, Cell's is done much, much better). But damn did I love seeing all the Z-Warriors teaming up to stake out some weird lookin' robots. It's basically the last time we see the whole gang going on a mission together and all of them contributing something. I honestly kinda loathe that the arc steadily washes away all the cool and unique set pieces (cities, highways, secret labs, desert islands) until we're back to a generic tournament ring that unsurprisingly gets blown up into a generic wasteland.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by MrSatan2099 » Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:32 pm

Some really good points here. I would add too that the constant fluctuation of the villains really helps reflect the idea that the timeline is now altered significantly from what Trunks knows in his future. Like Future Trunks deciding to change history made things that much more complex.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by The Accountant » Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:43 pm

The actual idea of the villain's changing from No.19 + 20 > No.17 + 18 + 16 > Cell is something that I actually don't mind.

The part I don't like is how certain characters are dumbed down or there is some contrived caveat to allow these changes to happen, i.e., the execution isn't really that great.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by ABED » Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:04 pm

While I've never written or published a book, my brother has. He's worked with plenty of editors and the job of an editor is to provide feedback. I think people have a big misunderstanding of the creative process. Sure we've all read horror stories of creators having their stories twisted to the point of unrecognizability, but in an editor is there to edit and help a writer's story. While the author should have the biggest say, a good storyteller gets feedback from people they trust.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Wrigglything » Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:23 am

It's funny, with so many horror stories about editors being control freaks and unable to accept the artist's intent, it's also comforting that the opposite has happened too. Obviously, the manga industry isn't perfect (and it may never be sadly), though usually there is an intent there so that the authors doesn't go bananas with their concept. I sometimes still think that it is more of a negative, but cases like George Lucas' prequel trilogy probably should be taken into consideration about the positives of oversight, so long as it is collaborative.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by WittyUsername » Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:24 pm

I think it works well enough. It would’ve been a bit anticlimactic if we had the heroes immediately face off against the main villains of the arc. I think the bigger issue is how Gohan suddenly gets thrust into the spotlight near the end of the arc, with very little buildup.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by GreatSaiyaJeff » Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:43 am

There werre only two things that bugged me about this arc.

1. Trunks originally saying 19 and 20 (but that's hindsight with the editors not liking the original designs.)

2. Cell revealing everything at once. Be nice if we got more info as time went on.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Soppa Saia People » Mon Oct 10, 2022 4:56 am

I don't really think the changes in antagonists is really editorial thing, both in the sense that Torishima wasn't the editor and that, if it was, there wouldn't be months worth of chapters were the story spent time buliding up #16-#18. In comparison, the actual editoral thing of Cell's design/transformation is something you wouldn't without outside info. Anyway yeah, honestly I think it shows off some of Toriyama's best writing, the fact that the story flows as well as it does and that all of thrown away antagonists besides maybe #16 serve a story purpose is really impressive. It's all very fast paced and fluid, the story never has a stable ground, but not in a sloppy way, it's cool writing, especially for a time travel story.

That chaotic feeling goes away and then some during the islands portion, but hey, everything prior to that, well I don't all love, I find really fascinating.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Neo-Makaiōshin » Mon Oct 10, 2022 9:05 pm

Without prior research and knowledge I wouldn't have known that the arc had "meddling" from (former) editor, which is a testament that the progression feel organic.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by Anonymous Friend » Wed Oct 12, 2022 11:59 am

To go along with the comments about other parties making suggestions to creators, didn't George Lucas get a lot of suggestions when making the first Star Wars film?Some of which probably made it as successful as it was. And that led to him giving up the director's chair in the sequel. Some even posit that the Prequels suffered from no one really speaking up and providing feedback to him.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by JulieYBM » Wed Oct 12, 2022 12:42 pm

The arc becomes significantly more boring once Perfect Cell appears. That's also the part of the story where the characters really stop interacting and Gokuu is kind of just slotted back into the story, except the story really isn't one about Gokuu. The whole arc just stops having any sort of personality after that point, which makes it a real bore. I have zero investment in Gokuu or Gohan's arcs because they're such non-characters in comparison to everyone else in the arc up until that point.
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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by WittyUsername » Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:18 pm

I will say, I believe I made a thread about this several years ago, but I do wonder how the story would’ve gone if Toriyama hadn’t been asked to change the villains, and #19 and #20 were the big bads all along. At the very least, I’d have to assume that #19 wouldn’t have been killed off so soon, and that Toriyama maybe would’ve held off on the Dr. Gero reveal (assuming that part was planned all along) until later in the arc.

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Re: The Cell Arc Progression

Post by GokuHater » Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:05 am

While examples of this are sudden and sometimes not expected, I feel this really depends on what you expect from the author. Do you want him to carefully craft the story or to go along with the flow.
Myself I think it works as Toriyama always seemed better with making stuff on the fly and the combining it in a clever way than plan out.

ex. Goku being a Saiyan is a major plot twist but it would work the same way if it was planned from the start.
Villain changing in the cell arc works as it's fresh and exciting - I imagine if you had 19 and 20 for the whole story it would not be as enjoyable.

In DBZ villains keep changing mainly due to Toriyama's editor influence and advice and it works. Please take a look on DBS where it's Toriyama giving outlines and advice - the main villain never really changes and the arcs seem a lot shorter due to this.

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