Do we expect too much from Super?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

We've all heard the arguments, its just lazy writing, full of fan service (return of Pilaf, Frieza & Ginyu), animation is abysmal, the list goes on, but then again we all loved Z but most agree that wasn't exactly a well written show with a world class budget either, even if the flawed aspects weren't as extreme as what we've seen with Super.

My thing with Super is that I don't expect the story to be the second coming of Shakespeare. I acknowledge Super's problems, but to me its just a fun series with colourful characters having fights with flashy action sequences, and it has its funny moments here and there, and I like having a show I can watch just for that.

People say Toriyama's heart isn't in Super, but really the man ended it all in 1995 feeling he had told the story he wanted to tell, of course everything since has been a cash grab, or attempt to give the fans what they like, more big transformations and fun action sequences. That's what Z was all about, Super is a continuation of Z so its only natural we would get more of that.

Arguably TOEI should put more effort into the animation sometimes, but in terms of character development and narrative should we be expecting more from a kid's show, and one which is a continuation of a story that had few places left to go with where the Buu saga left off?

[Hellspawn28]

Yes. When they announce that they are going to retell the last two movies, I knew to keep my hopes low until we get new stuff. For the animation, people know that Toei is cheap in general. Sailor Moon Crystal and Digimon Xro Wars had bad to meh animation at best. People had their hopes way too high.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Dragon Ball Z had the excuse of waiting for the Manga. And at any rate Kai fixed most of the problems with the original Z. Z also had a great sound track and some good direction in episodes and most of the big battles had decent-good animation.

None of this is present in Super. So they're retelling the movies okay an opportunity to expand certain things and at the very least I expected Toei to be competent. I at least expect some effort given but everything is sooo sloppy and amateurish, to the point I dread watching Super and it's turned me off the franchise kind of, I hardly visit Kanzenshuu as much nowadays.

[Hellspawn28]

Doing a retelling of the movies was a bad idea. They should have waited until January 2016 and have episode 1 do a 5 minute recap on what happen in BOG and ROF for newbies to catch up. Toei should have Digimon Adventure Tri take over after Kai in July 2015 until January. They announced Super way too soon. I feel like Super was likely plan around early last year in January and wanted it out fast to have something for Kai's time slot.

[FortuneSSJ]

Writing so far is good. Toei did what they could with both movies and improved both. Now, here comes the real thing.
I still think (and will always say) that Super should take place EOZ.

Toei shot themselves in the foot with these retellings. Being better or not doesn't matter, people want to see new things.
Super rushed production is unbelievelable. Its hard to believe what's happening behind the prodution of this anime.

Things like the polemic episode 5 should never happen, especially in 2015.

[Lord Beerus]

I thought that re-telling the movie was good idea in principle in the fact that not every Dragon Ball fans has seen Battle Of Gods or Resurrection F, so why not give the fans who going into Super without prior knowledge of the movies a bit of an update? It's just that Toei botched the execution of the re-tellings in many areas, especially in regards to Resurrection F. As far as what we should have expected from Super is concerned... it's pretty much everything you'd expected, and what I was expecting, when it comes to Toei animating and directing a shonen series. Many highs and many lows.

[precita]

You would think TOEI would learn their lesson after GT ended with only 64 episodes...and they couldn't mess up their one and only shot at the first new Dragonball series in 18 years...and yet they did.

Its baffling, really. I feel if Super ends sooner rather than later, Dragonball will be done again for at least another decade.

[Lord Beerus]

You would think TOEI would learn their lesson after GT ended with only 64 episodes...and they couldn't mess up their one and only shot at the first new Dragonball series in 18 years...and yet they did.

Its baffling, really. I feel if Super ends sooner rather than later, Dragonball will be done again for at least another decade.

The jury is still out in my opinion until the Champ arc begins. The quality of that arc will make or break Super.

[Wezenheim]

Writing so far is good. Toei did what they could with both movies and improved both. Now, here comes the real thing.
I still think (and will always say) that Super should take place EOZ.

Toei shot themselves in the foot with these retellings. Being better or not doesn't matter, people want to see new things.
Super rushed production is unbelievelable. Its hard to believe what's happening behind the prodution of this anime.

Honestly, I don't know how I feel about the timeline placement. On one hand, you already know what is going to happen at the end of the series, but on the other if you put it at the EOZ you pretty much have to use Oob, who I kind of find to be boring if I'm being totally honest. Then again, it might have been cool if he got to fight in the U6 tournament instead of Boo, who I'm also not extremely interested in. If this story doesn't take place over a long period of time (as in not several years pass before the main conflict of Super is over) maybe they would have been better off to place the story immediately after the tournament. I just dunno.

To the OP, I say yes and no. Yes because this show was never going to look "great". No because I don't think its unfair to at least want an "okay" looking show. I'm not even bothered by the art so much, I'm mostly bothered by the choppy fight choreography. The BoG arc was acceptable to me on a lot of fronts, but good lawd this 'F' arc is just ugly to look at.

The quality of the U6 arc wont be much better, I don't think. Maybe better than these recent episodes, but not by a ton. I still dont feel entirely comfortable putting a label on Super yet, because we don't know how good/bad U6 will be as far as the story goes, and in a lot of ways thats what I'm mostly interested in.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Doing a retelling of the movies was a bad idea. They should have waited until January 2016 and have episode 1 do a 5 minute recap on what happen in BOG and ROF for newbies to catch up. Toei should have Digimon Adventure Tri take over after Kai in July 2015 until January. They announced Super way too soon. I feel like Super was likely plan around early last year in January and wanted it out fast to have something for Kai's time slot.

I always had my suspicions Super was planned after Resurrection F debuted in Japan, especially because it was announced just after the weekend it topped Jurassic World. If it was planned in January I don't think instances like episode 5 would have been as awful.

[Hellspawn28]

A lot of things go behind the scenes that we don't know much about. Toei could have thought the idea of Super long before ROF was released. They wanted to wait for the right time to announce Super to the public. There is a lot of work that has to be done like planning out story ideas and what's next for the future. As for Episode 5, Toei is cheap and they don't care on how it looks as long if it sells well with kids.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I think its likely TOEI thought about doing a new series months before and Toriyama didn't want it, because let's not forget he wasn't serious about telling a long series since 1995. But rich people do get tempted when they see how easily they can continue to milk their properties even further and, if possible, in a shorter space of time than what was originally planned. Given its success Resurrection F could have been the catalyst for Toriyama to give in to TOEI's demands.

I'm sure even if Super ends after the Champa arc and the franchise goes back to movies we could get yet another new anime series in a few years, its something until last year TOEI hadn't tried since 1997 but now they can do it again knowing it will be a profiting endeavour.

[FortuneSSJ]

Dragon Ball will never die. I think that's obvious by this point.

- BOG and ROF were a success.
- Xenoverse was a success too.
- Heroes is making japanese fellows wet for 5 years now.
- Super has been always on top 10 anime TV rankings every week. And now with Universe 6 arc finally kick off, will jus get better.
- The merchandising is selling more now, than it ever did in the last 10 years.

If Dragon Ball is still not in his peak again, it's definitely getting closer.
Celebrate the 30th Anniversary with a brand new arc... never in my wildest dreams I thought this would be possible!

The series will probably be "dead" for some years again in the future, but it will be just a matter of time until awake again.

[JulieYBM]

Yes, net users expect too much out of Dragon Ball Super. There is rampant lack of knowledge about the industry and a general unwillingness to place oneself in the place of others. That one could say Toei Animation is putting no effort into the series is a grievous mistake. Dragon Ball Kai had no effort placed in the overall production. Dragon Ball Super is a victim of terrible scheduling which in turn places more burden upon the production staff.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Dragon Ball Kai had no effort placed in the overall production. Dragon Ball Super is a victim of terrible scheduling which in turn places more burden upon the production staff.

That's something I feel a lot of people don't think about. It's fine to prefer Kai on a story point of view - that's basically just saying you prefer that portion of the manga's story, which is fine - but Kai was still not really a new series at all when you get down to it. It wasn't even new animation, outside of the opening and endings and a few scattered corrections. Just by that alone, people should realize that Super has far more effort put into it than Kai ever did. Now whether one finds the effort well spent, that's it's own question, yes.

[JulieYBM]

Somebody was still putting effort into Dragon Ball Kai, it simply was clearly not any sort of 'priority' for the production committee members. It didn't require the sort of scheduling and talent coordination a regular animated series would. This issue with framing Dragon Ball Super as 'lazy' or 'cheap' is just all kinds of fucked up.

[Vijay]

The humble sign of defeat is when you read lines like "did we expected too much" instead of "how much Super has surpassed DBZ"

Over-expectation kills, mate. Something which I'm sure you would've known by now

But with a brand name like DragonBall, there's certain bar which has been set by "Z" , which was freakin 20 years ago & thats where GT & Supa fails to leap.

Action choreography, plot, character growth & development & general sense of fun defined DB & Z

Hell, GT "attempted" to incorporate those qualities & partially succedded. Supa, meh

I'll suggest even most hardcore DBZ fan to give Supa a miss & rather watch Naruto (a show which doesnt hold a candle to GT imo)

[JulieYBM]

Just because twenty years have passed it doesn't mean quality increases.

[Vijay]

Progression doesnt care about time, money or effort

It one wishes to progress (TOEI), it would show. Not givin excuses

[JulieYBM]

Progression doesnt care about time, money or effort

It one wishes to progress (TOEI), it would show. Not givin excuses

The things we want to do are separate from the things we are capable of doing. Effort doesn't mean accomplishment.