What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

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TobyS
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by TobyS » Wed Sep 25, 2019 2:58 pm

Pilafs gangs whole schtik is that they have a childlike emotional level of development. They blush at the idea of kissing, disgusted at Bulmas suggestions of torture. They all share a bedroom with seperate beds and pajamas...

They are mentally children and then get turned physically into children to match.
Trunks is mentally a child and is physically a child.

Yes in real life this couldn't happen but it's a fantasy gag manga about karate obssessed were-monkeys so.... yeah.

I really don't get the weird outrage around this. There's never a scene where like she uses here adult life experiences to groom Trunks or anything. I honestly think the main problem is people don't read dragonball and don't remember their original characterisation.

Future Mai does, through living through an apocolypse, does become an adult, but then she meets Trunks who is already also an adult.

Both scenarios work. What am I missing?
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Saiga » Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:19 pm

Personally, I find the explanation that it's okay for adults to be attracted to and date children because "they're immature/have childish minds" totally fucking disgusting, even if this is a fictional series that is just... beyond not okay.

I thought it was funny in BOG mostly because it wasn't serious and Mai was not into him, but having them actually be a couple is really disturbing. Mai is not a child, despite her immaturity and this is made incredibly clear when we see things from her perspective in BOG. She knows it isn't appropriate, and she still thinks the same way she would if she were an adult.
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Nokra » Sat Sep 28, 2019 6:27 pm

who cares? nothing ever even happens between the two kid versions or adult trunks and kid mai.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Tai Lung » Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:09 pm

oh come on .... all couples are forced or of dubious morality

Bulma married her boyfriend's killer.
Goku married without knowing the marriage and the responsibility of this.
Krillin married Lazuli / 18 who intended to kill his best friend etc etc

the only coherent is that of gohan and videl
I would also say that at least vegeta / bulma and 18 / krillin had more development currently even that of mai / trunks also started as a joke and then became more serious.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:42 pm

When I saw BoG, I was totally on board with that part of the story. As has been said, Trunks is into her there, not the other way around. Clearly my memories of Super are a bit faded here because, well, the show's just not all that memorable. But I do seem to recall as the series went on, it went into a more mutual direction, which I found a little uncomfortable.

Honestly, my bigger problems with this pairing are less from a squick perspective and more from a storytelling perspective. It was precisely when they brought her into the Future Trunks storyline that I threw up my hands in frustration. That just opens such a weird, complicated can of worms that it blows my mind. So in the alternate timeline, the Pilaf gang also wished to become kids? Well, what happened to Pilaf and Shuu? Are they dead? What transitioned Mai from bumbling villain to freedom fighter? How did she and Trunks even meet? Does Trunks know she's not actually that age? There are just so many questions that scenario demands answers to. And, quite frankly, it sounds fascinating. But Super's writers weren't interested in telling that story. They didn't have the slightest interest in digging into that scenario beyond the surface level. "So what?" you ask. "Dragon Ball never goes into depth with relationships." Yeah, well, other relationships don't necessarily require that much exposition. But the only reason our Trunks and Mai even know each other is through a very specific comedy of errors. Nothing about them naturally brings them together. Throw in all the impediments of a post-apocalyptic hellscape, and the entire premise seems ludicrous if not outright impossible. There are far too many unanswered questions, major unanswered questions, to simply shrug and go, "Yeah, I buy it."

And like most of Super, it's just so disappointing. There is so much fascinating material to be mined there, but the powers that be simply didn't care. Didn't want to put forth the effort, the slightest bit of brainpower, to make this into something. And that's infuriating to me. It's as if Toriyama or the other writers didn't put any thought beyond, "Oh. Those two kids are a couple. They should be a couple here too" without thinking about how impossible that scenario is. Did anybody even remember that she was supposed to be much older? Did anybody remember who her character actually was? I'd forgotten this, but if an earlier poster is correct in saying that kid Mai asks what she looks like as a grown-up, then it's pretty obvious they did forget! It just reeks of laziness. As someone else asked earlier, "Why Mai?" It literally could have been anybody. And if they weren't willing to put in the effort of making that pairing and that character shift make sense, then it really *SHOULD* have been anybody else.

I can certainly tell you, the whole time I was watching through that arc, I kept waiting and waiting for there to be anything about Mai in that arc, anything to make it make sense, anything to establish how she got there and how she ended up in this role as such a changed person. But no, there was nothing. Just the usual laziness and incompetence and lack of thought I've since come to expect from this series.
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Tai Lung » Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:17 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:42 pm When I saw BoG, I was totally on board with that part of the story. As has been said, Trunks is into her there, not the other way around. Clearly my memories of Super are a bit faded here because, well, the show's just not all that memorable. But I do seem to recall as the series went on, it went into a more mutual direction, which I found a little uncomfortable.

Honestly, my bigger problems with this pairing are less from a squick perspective and more from a storytelling perspective. It was precisely when they brought her into the Future Trunks storyline that I threw up my hands in frustration. That just opens such a weird, complicated can of worms that it blows my mind. So in the alternate timeline, the Pilaf gang also wished to become kids? Well, what happened to Pilaf and Shuu? Are they dead? What transitioned Mai from bumbling villain to freedom fighter? How did she and Trunks even meet? Does Trunks know she's not actually that age? There are just so many questions that scenario demands answers to. And, quite frankly, it sounds fascinating. But Super's writers weren't interested in telling that story. They didn't have the slightest interest in digging into that scenario beyond the surface level. "So what?" you ask. "Dragon Ball never goes into depth with relationships." Yeah, well, other relationships don't necessarily require that much exposition. But the only reason our Trunks and Mai even know each other is through a very specific comedy of errors. Nothing about them naturally brings them together. Throw in all the impediments of a post-apocalyptic hellscape, and the entire premise seems ludicrous if not outright impossible. There are far too many unanswered questions, major unanswered questions, to simply shrug and go, "Yeah, I buy it."

And like most of Super, it's just so disappointing. There is so much fascinating material to be mined there, but the powers that be simply didn't care. Didn't want to put forth the effort, the slightest bit of brainpower, to make this into something. And that's infuriating to me. It's as if Toriyama or the other writers didn't put any thought beyond, "Oh. Those two kids are a couple. They should be a couple here too" without thinking about how impossible that scenario is. Did anybody even remember that she was supposed to be much older? Did anybody remember who her character actually was? I'd forgotten this, but if an earlier poster is correct in saying that kid Mai asks what she looks like as a grown-up, then it's pretty obvious they did forget! It just reeks of laziness. As someone else asked earlier, "Why Mai?" It literally could have been anybody. And if they weren't willing to put in the effort of making that pairing and that character shift make sense, then it really *SHOULD* have been anybody else.

I can certainly tell you, the whole time I was watching through that arc, I kept waiting and waiting for there to be anything about Mai in that arc, anything to make it make sense, anything to establish how she got there and how she ended up in this role as such a changed person. But no, there was nothing. Just the usual laziness and incompetence and lack of thought I've since come to expect from this series.
it was supposed to be like that.
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:49 pm

Thank you for sharing this. However, if I recall, this was bonus material in the tankobon. And that brings me to an important point too: if I need ancillary material to understand a story, the story is broken. Your story doesn't get credit for it if you don't put it in your story. God, even DB Minus managed to get that right.

On top of that, this doesn't answer any of my questions beyond "They (obviously) got the Dragon Balls at some point." And it adds the even more unsettling implication that Mai, who had been an old lady seconds before, falls for an infant. Yuck.
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by nato25 » Sun Sep 29, 2019 7:25 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:49 pm Thank you for sharing this. However, if I recall, this was bonus material in the tankobon. And that brings me to an important point too: if I need ancillary material to understand a story, the story is broken. Your story doesn't get credit for it if you don't put it in your story. God, even DB Minus managed to get that right.

On top of that, this doesn't answer any of my questions beyond "They (obviously) got the Dragon Balls at some point." And it adds the even more unsettling implication that Mai, who had been an old lady seconds before, falls for an infant. Yuck.
I wouldn't exactly say that's the moment they fell in love. It sucks they didn't go into more detail regarding how Mai came to be along Trunks side in the future timeline but I don't think it's unbelievable. Shu and Pilaf probably got taken out in some attack by Black, but we will never know the true reason. Super definitely liked to skip out on elaborating on the Pilaf gang. I believe the movie gave us something about them wishing to be younger but the show skipped that entirely.

That's a fair enough call on bonus material however I always love when we get one of these from Toyotaro. It's awesome how he fills in the blanks without (to my knowledge) causing any plot discrepancies that we have enough of already.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Tai Lung » Sun Sep 29, 2019 7:27 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:49 pm Thank you for sharing this. However, if I recall, this was bonus material in the tankobon. And that brings me to an important point too: if I need ancillary material to understand a story, the story is broken. Your story doesn't get credit for it if you don't put it in your story. God, even DB Minus managed to get that right.

On top of that, this doesn't answer any of my questions beyond "They (obviously) got the Dragon Balls at some point." And it adds the even more unsettling implication that Mai, who had been an old lady seconds before, falls for an infant. Yuck.
ok I will repeat my comment
Tai Lung wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 7:09 pm oh come on .... all couples are forced or of dubious morality

Bulma married her boyfriend's killer.
Goku married without knowing the marriage and the responsibility of this.
Krillin married Lazuli / 18 who intended to kill his best friend etc etc

the only coherent is that of gohan and videl
I would also say that at least vegeta / bulma and 18 / krillin had more development currently even that of mai / trunks also started as a joke and then became more serious.
I could ask me the same question ...
why chichi and not suno or bulma?
Why vegeta and not yamcha?

Sincerely trunks and mai I don't like them together ... but I also didn't like goku and chichi, vegeta and bulma or krillin and 18 seem equally forced to me ... probably one or two of them started as a joke of the author that he take too far in his lack of interest in creating a relationship but many ended up accepting because they got used to it. I just think ... that we are judging too much something that was never the specialty of the series ... the only thing that could be recognized currently is that many of the couples had a development in their relationship ... something that almost never showed before
they support each other, solve problems together and show that they love each other etc.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Jackalope89 » Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:10 pm

I'm neutral to it. While Mai and Shuu are clearly still Pilaf's underlings, it does seem at times as more than just their ages were regressed.

And besides, for Future Trunks, they're both adults. So, whatever.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by DBZAOTA482 » Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:04 pm

Should have never even been a thought.
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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Grand Elder Togu » Mon Oct 07, 2019 1:00 am

Tai Lung wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:17 pm it was supposed to be like that.
Image
I haven't read any of the Super manga so correct me if I'm wrong lol but this still doesn't make sense. How are those dragon balls active with piccolo dead?

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by mute_proxy » Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:13 am

Grand Elder Togu wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 1:00 am
I haven't read any of the Super manga so correct me if I'm wrong lol but this still doesn't make sense. How are those dragon balls active with piccolo dead?
Look at the last 3 panels. Piccolo dies (gets killed by the androids) after Pilaf gets his wish. The balls turn to stone and fall down.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by Grand Elder Togu » Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:23 pm

mute_proxy wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:13 am
Grand Elder Togu wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 1:00 am
I haven't read any of the Super manga so correct me if I'm wrong lol but this still doesn't make sense. How are those dragon balls active with piccolo dead?
Look at the last 3 panels. Piccolo dies (gets killed by the androids) after Pilaf gets his wish. The balls turn to stone and fall down.
Ah now I see :oops:

To OP: I thought it was cute and funny in BoG. Hardly any character in the series comes across as emotionally mature enough to handle a "real" relationship, but that's exactly why its so funny. It's just puppy love gags, not like they are french kissing every time they are on screen. My only beef with Future Trunks x Mai is that its probably the most boring pairing in the series. It might've been a bit more interesting if Mai actually behaved like herself or looked her real age, but she's a complete blank slate there and that bothers me more than anything else.

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Re: What do you guys think of Mai being paired up with Trunks?

Post by KuririnNoKotoKa » Mon Oct 07, 2019 10:25 pm

It's just a pedophilia joke for the sake of having a pedophilia joke.

I have no idea why everyone is ignoring, willfully or or not, that Mai fell for Trunks in the actual movie Battle of Gods. Him trying to cover his own ass with pairing Trunks and Mai as adults does not change the original intent of Battle of Gods, especially since that movie was clearly meant to be a one-off.

May I remind some of the high class humor of Dragon Ball, which consisted of Muten Roshi simply groping an caressing a knocked out Lanfan at the end of the chapter with no actual punchline other than the fact he groped a unconscious woman?

It's just Toriyama being Toriyama. Comes with the territory.

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