Do you want Dragon Ball to continue indefinitely?

[LSSJGODSSJ4Gogeta]

I say yes. They already done all the bad things they can, they can't really make it any worse, they only have room to improve and make the games more fun. More ssj forms the better I say. Eventually they'll do something amazing (hopefully)

I get dragonball has a beginning and end argument, but the manga ends with basically saying

"after this there's MORE enemies...and Goku beats them all off screen. k thanx bai"

So I think it should go on. Only end if you show a perfect ending for the franchise like GT's. That was beautiful, so was kai's ending in terms of execution (before the buu revival. The montage was nice)....so maybe Toriyama needs to make a awesome final villain but let Toei add the emotion like they did with GT/Kai. Work together.

[ekrolo2]

You could take it that way OR the way I took it is, "Hey guys, I'm a magnet for these dangerous monsters, so I'm opting to stay away." It has nothing to do with trusting himself to do the right thing against a strong opponent, just that if they are going to find him, they might as well find him away from people he cares about. However, all that is moot when he's still dead and someone would've attacked Earth regardless.

I guess it just comes down to different interpretations in this regard. But given how the entire arc snowballs from him and everyone else being selfish morons and how a lot of threats specifically tied with Goku would've existed to threaten people regardless of his existence yet at the same time got worse specifically because he was there. I think him staying dead for the sake of keeping villain escalation from happening is more sensible and more interesting. Pretty much one of the few redeeming qualities of the Android arc.

Their rivalry seems more friendly now and it's not as much Goku being the strongest as it is Goku being a lower class fighter and showing him up. While I think he's gotten over that, there's still that emotional attachment. He still wants to be better than that one guy, just not in nearly as evil a manner, but slightly more like Tenshinhan who always pushed himself because of Goku.

It's still a tired rivalry for me. It's been pretty much the only reason Vegeta's done anything after Namek and the Boo Saga put a good cap to it. Now, Vegeta having a personal vendetta against Beerus for his involvement in the destruction of Planet Vegeta while simultaneously have to spend months serving under Whis & taking care of him while he sleeps gives him an understandable motivation to get this strong without needing to back peddle on a good aspect of the Boo Saga.

[TheMikado]

I say yes. They already done all the bad things they can, they can't really make it any worse, they only have room to improve and make the games more fun. More ssj forms the better I say. Eventually they'll do something amazing (hopefully)

I get dragonball has a beginning and end argument, but the manga ends with basically saying

"after this there's MORE enemies...and Goku beats them all off screen. k thanx bai"

So I think it should go on. Only end if you show a perfect ending for the franchise like GT's. That was beautiful, so was kai's ending in terms of execution (before the buu revival. The montage was nice)....so maybe Toriyama needs to make a awesome final villain but let Toei add the emotion like they did with GT/Kai. Work together.

Exactly. GT's ending was a homage and paid respect to every character which the story has been about. Not just Goku, but all of them. I didn't mind the 100 years thing either because they could always 1) bring Goku back 2) That was plenty of time for other characters to shine during that time.
Plus they were extremely vague on exactly where Goku went and what he was doing so it left a lot of doors open for other Non-Goku or Goku specific works. I don't mind Super for what it is, but its seems like it going out of its way to only take the Shonen/marketing aspects and leaving the love and heart of Dragonball at the door.

[LSSJGODSSJ4Gogeta]

I say yes. They already done all the bad things they can, they can't really make it any worse, they only have room to improve and make the games more fun. More ssj forms the better I say. Eventually they'll do something amazing (hopefully)

I get dragonball has a beginning and end argument, but the manga ends with basically saying

"after this there's MORE enemies...and Goku beats them all off screen. k thanx bai"

So I think it should go on. Only end if you show a perfect ending for the franchise like GT's. That was beautiful, so was kai's ending in terms of execution (before the buu revival. The montage was nice)....so maybe Toriyama needs to make a awesome final villain but let Toei add the emotion like they did with GT/Kai. Work together.

Exactly. GT's ending was a homage and paid respect to every character which the story has been about. Not just Goku, but all of them. I didn't mind the 100 years thing either because they could always 1) bring Goku back 2) That was plenty of time for other characters to shine during that time.
Plus they were extremely vague on exactly where Goku went and what he was doing so it left a lot of doors open for other Non-Goku or Goku specific works. I don't mind Super for what it is, but its seems like it going out of its way to only take the Shonen/marketing aspects and leaving the love and heart of Dragonball at the door.

Goku leaving with Shenron could be a good plot device to how he finds Super's universes. It's a pipe dream, but it's one that can and should happen. To me dragonbaall/z/gt is the REAL timeline. I want THAT to continue, the manga was the original, but the anime was MY dragonball.

[Cipher]

Torn between enjoying the material and being ever-aware of what Kunzait captured in his post--that there's a level on which all the new material feels much more like a product than Toriyama busting his ass to deliver an entertaining manga as was the source for the story during its original run. I won't discredit the fact that he essentially scripted two new movies and was apparently enthusiastic enough to outline a whole new plot for serialization--and in a lot of ways it's as Toriyama a story as they come--but the starting point was still Toei's Battle of Gods, and the vehicle is still a TV anime using only his outline and designs.

For all the expansion going on, there's also a sense of playing it safe that GT left completely in the dust (say what you will about it, but it's absolutely staggering GT managed to have the distinct aesthetic identity it does while being written by committee as a franchise sequel, or that it went for the ending it did).

Either way though, no -- I don't want this "main story" material to last forever. What we had before was fine, both the manga and anime ending. I'm totally into seeing where all this goes, but not only does 1) it not feel quite as organic, 2) part of my enjoyment is actually seeing what new "ending" we get, and a lot of this material can be made to feel justified or not on those grounds.

[TheMikado]

^ Looking forward to the new ending as well.

[ABED]

It's still a tired rivalry for me.

But it's not the engine for one of the central conflicts. That's what I think is different and why it doesn't show a regression of his character, while at the same time keeping him who he is. There's a difference between "I have to be at my best and this guy proves that there are higher hurdles for me" and "I must be the best, he can't be better than me. He is better than me, I must kill him!" He's not backpedaling. I think you misunderstand what happened with Vegeta. There's little to suggest that he doesn't still want to be the best and best Kakarot. I take that his rivalry no longer stems from a place of insecurity.

[ekrolo2]

It's still a tired rivalry for me.
But it's not the engine for one of the central conflicts. That's what I think is different and why it doesn't show a regression of his character, while at the same time keeping him who he is. There's a difference between "I have to be at my best and this guy proves that there are higher hurdles for me" and "I must be the best, he can't be better than me. He is better than me, I must kill him!" He's not backpedaling. I think you misunderstand what happened with Vegeta. There's little to suggest that he doesn't still want to be the best and best Kakarot. I take that his rivalry no longer stems from a place of insecurity.

As I said, I think the Super TV show does a good job of showing that Vegeta isn't so much of an ass about their competition as Resurrection F was. My primary issue with Vegeta's relationship with Goku mostly stems from them thinking they can't and, unless you force them to, won't work together. Some have said that the ending to F is just them joking but given their track records, I'd sooner say they ACTUALLY believe this to be true more so than anything else.

[ABED]

That's not regression though.

[ekrolo2]

That's not regression though.

How is it not? Vegeta and Goku learned how to work together in the Boo Saga, now they're acting as if it's factually impossible and even act as if them agreeing over this is one of the few times they've agreed on anything period. Given how impressively stupid both of them are and the Toriyamamnesia, I'm pretty sure they're 100% convinced of it. Almost as if a key moment from a previous arc is blatantly being ignored for forced stupidity so the writers can get an easily avoidable story going. Hrm...

[ABED]

But the point of Vegeta's change wasn't that he could learn to work with Goku, it's that he dropped his insecurity about having to be better than Goku. He wants to be better, but not because he feels less than someone else. He could freely admit that Goku was better than him without feeling insecure or small because of that fact. He can simply acknowledge the truth instead of evading it. He worked with Goku to defeat Buu because there was no other way to win. With Golden Freeza, they could win one on one.

[ekrolo2]

But the point of Vegeta's change wasn't that he could learn to work with Goku, it's that he dropped his insecurity about having to be better than Goku. He wants to be better, but not because he feels less than someone else. He could freely admit that Goku was better than him without feeling insecure or small because of that fact. He can simply acknowledge the truth instead of evading it. He worked with Goku to defeat Buu because there was no other way to win. With Golden Freeza, they could win one on one.

It wasn't the primary point, however, it shouldn't be getting brushed aside as an added bonus as easily as it is. They saved the universe by cooperating witch each other which helps Vegeta get over his insecurity. Yet, the entirety of Resurrection F (the movie) has both of them act like this is impossible. That Vegeta still feels insecure about always being a step behind Goku and they can't work together because of it.

Then at the end, when it seems like the film might just redeem itself, both of them laugh at the very idea of cooperating after such a thing would've allowed them to defeat Freeza with no one needing to die. If the character weren't acting like such dickheads over this decision but rather said something like "We're saving team work for when we REALLY need it!" then that would work a lot better. But they aren't saying that. They actually, 100% sincerely think its factually impossible for them to work together after they saved the ENTIRE universe.

[ABED]

But I don't ever think that was a point. They saved the universe together because they HAD to work together, in this case, they don't have to in order to defeat Freeza. Neither feels insecure about having to work together, it's just the competitor in them overwhelmingly prefers not to if they dont' have to, in this case, they didn't have to. They are only acting like it's impossible because they aren't in the circumstances where they are forced to. In Battle of Gods, Vegeta didn't put up a huge fuss when he helped Goku become a SSGod. They were very confident either could defeat Freeza.

[ekrolo2]

But I don't ever think that was a point. They saved the universe together because they HAD to work together, in this case, they don't have to in order to defeat Freeza. Neither feels insecure about having to work together, it's just the competitor in them overwhelmingly prefers not to if they dont' have to, in this case, they didn't have to. They are only acting like it's impossible because they aren't in the circumstances where they are forced to. In Battle of Gods, Vegeta didn't put up a huge fuss when he helped Goku become a SSGod. They were very confident either could defeat Freeza.

It's not about insecurity, it's about them acting like it's impossible for them to EVER work together and under circumstance. As in, they'll stubbornly refuse to do so unless things get so inconceivably fucked they'll have no choice but to do it when there's no reason for them to think or act like this. Through their mutual cooperation, they saved the universe and Vegeta got respect for Goku. This idea of them EVER working together, regardless if they can individually defeat an opponent or not being treated as an impossibility is blatantly ignoring what happened in the Boo Saga so Toriyama can write them like idiots to progress the story along.

As for BoG, Vegeta is written sensibly there and Goku's actually the one who dislikes getting other people's help because he's gotten an ego following his victory over Boo. In Resurrection F, they're both written with classic Toriyamamnesia. Goku's arrogant again and Vegeta treats him like a tool who he can barely stand.

[Kunzait_83]

Nothing has to stop them from experiencing it. It doesn't require new material for people of the future to experience it. It's still there. It still exists. Unless an apocalypse occurs that wipes out every copy of every thing, it's going to keep existing. Now I'm not naive enough to say that new material doesn't help keep it relevant and in the public eye, but new material isn't necessary for someone to find it and enjoy it. It would probably be fewer people, but that really doesn't bother me either.

Gaffer, to quote an old Meat Loaf song, "took the words right out of my mouth".

Plus Dragon Ball's impact/legacy looms large enough that that alone will still act as all the advertising and marketing it'll ever need from now till eternity to bring new people towards it. This website here's very existence alone is testament to that fact: this place started up years well after the series had completely finished, and look at how vital and gigantic of a community it managed to build from scratch: these forums first launched in freaking 2004, 7 years after the end of GT and 9 years after the end of the manga. It didn't get an official North American adaptation until its very last year of existence, and even then that dub didn't finally catch onto the larger American public until several years AFTER it had finished entirely: AND that official adaptation went well out of its way to be as crappy as can be and expend actual effort and money towards eroding as much of the series' uniqueness as it could and homogenize it with other, blander and nowhere near as enduring American cartoons. And yet here we are, more than a decade after it STILL managed to become as big a phenomenon Stateside as it did everywhere else.

Some of the biggest ever online memes in existence stemmed from Dragon Ball only within the past decade (not that this is something I'd consider to be particularly prideful of, but it is a further testament to the series' longevity in the public mind). Its marketed today - and has been marketed for the last decade - as being contemporaneous with most of the biggest ever present day Shonen mega-franchises: do you see Yu Yu Hakusho or City Hunter or Slam Dunk or Ranma 1/2 or Fist of the North Star (some of its ACTUAL contemporaneous Shonen mega-titles) being able to boast the same? Is Ryo Saeba, once one of the biggest ever character names in manga, still hocking Shueisha shit alongside Luffy and Naruto? Do present day kids wear t-shirts or play video games where Toguro, Raoh, and Freeza share the same villainous space with one another?

Yeah, that's a big no.

These things are not at all the sort of things that just any old work of media can boast to be capable of conjuring. Dragon Ball's post-mortem longevity has long proven to be potent and ever-lasting in the extreme. If you were suddenly worried in like 2012 or 2013 that Dragon Ball was suddenly, after ALL that time and ALL that immense space still being taken up in the public consciousness, in any real danger of then fading out into total obscurity without warning, then frankly you'd need to have your head examined for a total and utter lack of anything even resembling perspective.

With or without new material, Dragon Ball was never, ever, EVER in any danger of being "lost". At all. Trust me, the list of (once-insanely popular and worthwhile) shit that was genuinely "lost" from the public consciousness between the early 90s and now is palpably enormous. Dragon Ball is NOT among those pop cultural casualties: it has completely and thoroughly survived the test of time and still persists, in spite of everything that's been done with it in all those years. Super has only been around about a year at this point: you think just a year or two ago prior to Super that DB was in any danger of slipping away from public memory? Before BoG? Before Kai? The sheer staggering online presence it has maintained throughout the ENTIRETY of its 20 year long absence begs otherwise.

You think 20/25 years ago that 7, 8, 9, 10 year old me, out of ALL the other anime and manga stuff that was around and a big damn deal back then, would've expected I'd be still talking mainly Dragon Ball of all things decades down the road into my late 20s and early 30s? Dragon Ball? The wonky, quirky little kids' Wuxia series with the crazy hairdos and fart jokes mixed with some mild ultra-violence? Take a time machine back then and tell kid-me that (along with kid-me's other, much older, anime and manga friends) and see what kind of reaction that would get you.

If anything, I'd have figured if something from back then was to endure to this degree, it'd have been any number of the utterly GIGANTIC amount of more adult-aimed stuff. 20/25 years down the road into adulthood, early 90s Kid Kunzait would've figured I'd still be talking about Akira or Ghost in the Shell or Patlabor or Vampire Hunter D or Robot Carnival or Bubblegum Crisis or Golgo 13 or Dominion Tank Police or Wings of Honneamise or Crying Freeman or Lupin III. Ninja Scroll or Dirty Pair maybe even. Grave of the Fireflies certainly.

And if it was to be something Shonen/for kids? I'd have guessed Area 88, Barefoot Gen, Devilman, Space Adventure Cobra, Macross, Guyver, Fist of the North Star, anything Rumiko Takahashi ever did, DEFINITELY freaking Galaxy Express 999 or Harlock or any of Leiji Matsumoto's other works... something, virtually ANYTHING else besides Dragon Ball would've been my first guess. My second, third, and fourth guesses as well. Probably even fifth and sixth. Hell, I'd have probably gone with Project A-Ko well before my brain back then would've arrived at Dragon Ball... and that anime consists of roughly 90% inside jokes that only 80s Otaku are intended to even remotely get!

Take a look at where ANY of those other properties are in relation to Dragon Ball today: most of those were way, way, way, WAY bigger deals (at least among Western Otaku) back in the late 80s and early 90s than Dragon Ball ever was. Fucking Guyver got a terrible American live action film (two of them even!) LONG before Dragon Ball ever did: that's not an accident.

And yet, here we are: Dragon Ball endures into the super mainstream pantheon, all the rest of its contemporaries are in the dustbin of super nerd obscurity. Go back in time to the early 90s and tell any Western Otaku that Dragon Ball will endure decades into the future where ALL those other major titles will have faded: the one guaranteed response you'll get is a resounding "Buh?"

Not that I mean to downplay how big a thing Dragon Ball always was: it was definitely exceedingly big. Damn near unavoidably big. But not "King Shit of Fuck Mountain, will outlast EVERYTHING else that ever was in 25 years time." levels of big. No one back in its day would've seen THAT coming.

People are never going to forget this thing. Not at this point certainly. Never, ever, ever. That was already proven for the entire 20 years we've gone without anything new and DB still looming as large over the anime/geek cultural landscape as it ever did, arguably even more so. Its as enduring a cultural entity as I've ever seen, PARTICULARLY out of the Japanese anime/manga space.

Anecdotal: my current girlfriend is someone who's fairly/relatively new to anime (or new enough). Very nearly her entire breadth and perspective on anime falls squarely in line with someone who's primary hooked into the late-2000s/early 2010s of current popular titles: her pantheon of titles consists of stuff I don't care about and was never made for someone like me to begin with, my entire pantheon of titles consists of stuff she's never even heard of at all.

Dragon Ball though?

In her own words the very first time I ever mentioned it (offhandedly mind you): "Everyone knows what Dragon Ball is."

Its become the anime/manga equivalent of something like Seinfeld, Harry Potter, or Star Wars/Trek at this point: people who can't name another anime or manga-related thing to save their life can at the very least name Dragon Ball. Its just this universally ubiquitous entity that's not in any real danger of ever going anywhere. And it got to that point without needing ANYTHING new to "bolster" it (like other properties tend to) for over 20 freaking years.

You don't see that too often.

For all the expansion going on, there's also a sense of playing it safe that GT left completely in the dust (say what you will about it, but it's absolutely staggering GT managed to have the distinct aesthetic identity it does while being written by committee as a franchise sequel, or that it went for the ending it did).

Could not agree more. And I'm hardly much of a GT fan, for obvious reasons. Its not "good" overall by any remote stretch: but it's WAY more of a (weirdly) respectable failure than something like Super has been thus far, which is playing as uber-conservative with the material as all get out. That it takes as many chances and carves out its own distinct persona (for better or worse) in spite of its genesis as total corporately-mandated product is very rare and unusual for this kind of thing, and by all means something it should be praised for despite its myriad of other failures and issues.

Someone behind the scenes, to whatever extent, still gave at least KIND OF sort of a shit about Dragon Ball in terms of "creative integrity" at that point. Certainly enough to give it an ending that successfully manages to be as definitive and final of one as can be while still giving it a degree of genuine, legitimate ambiguity to it ("ambiguity" being something that Dragon Ball has just about NEVER played with very much at all whatsoever before or since then).

Also Mad Max.

Let's not go that far. I'll take Star Wars over Fury Road. It has characters and a story, even if it was essentially episode 4 all over again. Fury Road was the same as the previous two mad max films, but at least Star Wars had characters I cared about, much like Dragon Ball.

Eugh. This isn't at all the forum to have this sort of discussion in, so I'll abstain from commenting: save to say I'm 10,000% on the exact flip side of this opinion, and move right along.

[Zephyr]

Torn between enjoying the material and being ever-aware of what Kunzait captured in his post--that there's a level on which all the new material feels much more like a product than Toriyama busting his ass to deliver an entertaining manga as was the source for the story during its original run. I won't discredit the fact that he essentially scripted two new movies and was apparently enthusiastic enough to outline a whole new plot for serialization--and in a lot of ways it's as Toriyama a story as they come--but the starting point was still Toei's Battle of Gods, and the vehicle is still a TV anime using only his outline and designs.

For all the expansion going on, there's also a sense of playing it safe that GT left completely in the dust (say what you will about it, but it's absolutely staggering GT managed to have the distinct aesthetic identity it does while being written by committee as a franchise sequel, or that it went for the ending it did).

Either way though, no -- I don't want this "main story" material to last forever. What we had before was fine, both the manga and anime ending. I'm totally into seeing where all this goes, but not only does 1) it not feel quite as organic, 2) part of my enjoyment is actually seeing what new "ending" we get, and a lot of this material can be made to feel justified or not on those grounds.

I'm pretty much of this mind. Personally, I enjoy being able to reflect on the totality of material, piece things together, and look at the state of the existing in-universe world from a big picture perspective. Being able to do this necessitates an actual ending and a status quo upon which I can reflect.

Kunzait's absolutely correct, in that this is a complete corporate cash-in, and Toriyama's involvement is merely a happy additional factor that isn't entirely driven by the sort of creative spark that gave us the original manga.

In spite of this, I'm getting enough enjoyment out of this ride that I'm okay with the variety of problems plaguing it.

All that said, I have no qualms with video games nigh-perpetually continuing to be made, assuming they give us a decent variety of quality titles.

people who can't name another anime or manga-related thing to save their life can at the very least name Dragon Ball.

I think the Pokemon anime also applies.

[TheMikado]

^@kunzait_83 I absolutely love your posts, even down to your thoughts on Star Wars.. Judging from your post we must be around the same age.
Anyway your perspective on GT is fantastic. It's clear the writers and animators were fans of BOTH series and paid homage to the entire collection of works. No greater honor could an artist ask than be recognized for their body of work and respect for the lore which they created. GT introduced 1 new Saiyan transformation versus DBZs 3. There are a million ways they could have gone straight for the dollars and marketing but instead they at least respect the entirety of the fanbase as well as the original works of the creator.

By contrast Super feels like a blatant and disgusting cash grab and saddens me to see what the franchise has become.

[Lord Beerus]

By contrast Super feels like a blatant and disgusting cash grab and saddens me to see what the franchise has become.

All of the Dragon Ball animes were cheaply made cash grabs.

[ABED]

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but does anyone have this much animosity for sole proprietorships or partnerships as they do for corporations? And who cares if it's a cash grab? The Cell and Buu arcs were continued because Toriyama's editors wanted him to continue, but a number of you that hate the corporate cash grabs think that had the perfect ending. I don't. I think GT's ending was a far more satisfying conclusion. Hell, the dance episode was a better ending. It's possible and even likely that you don't like the creative decisions has nothing to do with people being driven just to make money, but rather it being badly written.

All of the Dragon Ball animes were cheaply made cash grabs.

But they were wonderful cash grabs. Don't underestimate the value of a cash grab. For instance, Frasier could easily be seen as a cash grab after the huge success of Cheers, but that didn't stop it from being a great series in its own right.

[ekrolo2]

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but does anyone have this much animosity for sole proprietorships or partnerships as they do for corporations? And who cares if it's a cash grab? The Cell and Buu arcs were continued because Toriyama's editors wanted him to continue, but a number of you that hate the corporate cash grabs think that had the perfect ending. I don't. I think GT's ending was a far more satisfying conclusion. Hell, the dance episode was a better ending. It's possible and even likely that you don't like the creative decisions has nothing to do with people being driven just to make money, but rather it being badly written.

All of the Dragon Ball animes were cheaply made cash grabs.

But they were wonderful cash grabs. Don't underestimate the value of a cash grab. For instance, Frasier could easily be seen as a cash grab after the huge success of Cheers, but that didn't stop it from being a great series in its own right.

I don't particularly care for the whole concept of "cash grabs". Pretty much all of this stuff is being made to turn in a profit in one way, shape or form. As long as its good I don't really see the problem with *gasp* corporations or creators making a profit off of it. Like you can call the latest entry in something lazy or rushed or half-assed but even the meticulously executed stories, regardless of genre or format are there to make money.