Filler - were people "spoiled" by Kai?

[NitroEX]

Unfortunately the fillers are the only way that the supporting cast can be, in Super, useful again.

No, good writing and creative ideas are how you make weak characters useful.

[Mewzard]

I blame god ki for that. Who had the bright idea of, "Let's take the strongest characters on the show, multiply their power immensely, and COMPLETELY leave everyone else in the dust"?

...Oh yeah, that was Toriyama's idea. -_-

I REALLY don't want Toriyama to be the new George Lucas, but he's really making it hard to like his newer work right now.

More on topic though, I think episodes like 43 are great, because they build on characters, but others are pure filler and have no reason to be there.

Now I may be misremembering, but wasn't Super Saiyan God already in Battle of Gods before Toriyama even got majorly involved? There was another script writer from what I recall, and Toriyama ended up changing a bunch of stuff, but I believe SSJ God and Beerus were holdovers from that (albeit, in completely different forms appearance wise).

[LuckyCat]

I'm also in this boat, I feel like the downtime episodes keep it from going to Goku fighting Golden Freeza to fighting in a tourney 2 episodes later. It allows me to breathe or to make it feel like it's not nonstop fighting. I think the slice of life episodes could have been just a bit longer between the BOG-ROF-Champa arcs but I think there was only so much they could flesh out and bridge upon because of them being originally movies.

I don't mean to single you out, as others are saying this too, but is breathing time between arcs really necessary? Let's take a look at what Kai did:

53 "The Final Blow, Son Goku... Planet Namek Scatters Throughout Space" / "Goku's Final Attack! Countdown to Planet Namek's Destruction!"

On Earth, the Grand Elder dies again, but before his death, he gives his power to Moori, one of his eldest sons, making him the new Grand Elder, and thereby preserving the power of the Namekian dragon balls. Meanwhile, on Namek, the dying Frieza begs for mercy from Goku. Despite his better judgement, Goku cannot ignore Frieza's pleas for help and gives the tyrant some of his own ki before departing. However, Frieza lets his pride get the better of him and unleashes one final ki blast at Goku, but the Super Saiyan easily repels the blast right back at the tyrant and seemingly destroys Frieza in the process. Goku then attempts to escape in Frieza's spaceship, but is unable to make it take off. Namek finally explodes and it appears that Goku perishes along with the planet.

54 "Goku Vanishes in Space... Return to Life! Super Warriors" / "Goku Vanishes Into Space! Welcome Home, Super Warriors!"

Following Namek's destruction, King Kai informs Bulma and the others on Earth of Goku's apparent death, and that even though the Namekian dragon balls can resurrect Goku and Krillin, they will be brought back to where Namek used to be and die again in the vacuum of space. However, Vegeta comes up with the idea of using the dragon balls to first bring Goku and Krillin's souls to the Earth's check-in station in the Other World, from where they can be resurrected on Earth. 130 days after their use on Namek, the Namekian dragon balls become re-active, and the first two wishes are used to successfully revive Krillin; it is revealed that Goku is actually still alive and that he will return to Earth on his own later. Yamcha is then brought back to life with the third wish. Another 130 days later, the Namekian dragon balls are used to revive both Tien and Chiaotzu, and are then used to teleport all of the native Namekians to a new planet. The Z Fighters then return to their peaceful lives, waiting patiently for Goku to return.

55 "That's Earth, Papa... Freeza and His Father Strike Back" / "There Is Planet Earth, Father! Frieza and King Cold Strike Back!"

A year has passed and still Goku has not returned to Earth. However, it is revealed that Frieza managed to survive his battle with the Super Saiyan, has been rebuilt into a cyborg by his father King Cold, and is heading towards Earth, intending to exact revenge on Goku. The rest of the Z Fighters gather to defend the Earth from Frieza, despite knowing the odds are against them. However, as soon as Frieza, King Cold, and their army of soldiers arrive on Earth, they are met by a mysterious teenager wielding a sword, who says that he has come to kill them.

A mere two weeks after a major arc ended, another major arc starts right back up! However, because of how Toriyama wove downtime into his stories with funny training episodes, there was never a need for "breathing" time. A good story has an introduction, a climax, and a resolution. I think if an episode isn't contributing to any of these story functions, it's fair to ask if the episode is even necessary.

[TekTheNinja]

Unfortunately the fillers are the only way that the supporting cast can be, in Super, useful again.

No, good writing and creative ideas are how you make weak characters useful.

So much this.

I blame god ki for that. Who had the bright idea of, "Let's take the strongest characters on the show, multiply their power immensely, and COMPLETELY leave everyone else in the dust"?

...Oh yeah, that was Toriyama's idea. -_-

I REALLY don't want Toriyama to be the new George Lucas, but he's really making it hard to like his newer work right now.

More on topic though, I think episodes like 43 are great, because they build on characters, but others are pure filler and have no reason to be there.

Now I may be misremembering, but wasn't Super Saiyan God already in Battle of Gods before Toriyama even got majorly involved? There was another script writer from what I recall, and Toriyama ended up changing a bunch of stuff, but I believe SSJ God and Beerus were holdovers from that (albeit, in completely different forms appearance wise).

I'm pretty sure Toriyama had almost complete control of BoG

[dbgtFO]

Now I may be misremembering, but wasn't Super Saiyan God already in Battle of Gods before Toriyama even got majorly involved? There was another script writer from what I recall, and Toriyama ended up changing a bunch of stuff, but I believe SSJ God and Beerus were holdovers from that (albeit, in completely different forms appearance wise).

I'm pretty sure Toriyama had almost complete control of BoG

Super Saiyan God and God of Destruction Beerus were already in the script provided by Yusuke Watanabe. Toriyama kept those concepts, but changed them to fit his vision.

[Mewzard]

Super Saiyan God and God of Destruction Beerus were already in the script provided by Yusuke Watanabe. Toriyama kept those concepts, but changed them to fit his vision.

Yeah, that's when Beerus (then solely named after Virus) was a lizard who infected the Saiyans with evil, and Super Saiyan God was designed by Yamamuro as "a character more built than Super Saiyan, with a cape".

Things changed a lot between the early planning stages and after Toriyama took over things more completely.

[Sonicjamareiz]

Unfortunately the fillers are the only way that the supporting cast can be, in Super, useful again.

No, good writing and creative ideas are how you make weak characters useful.

So is it bad writing to not have supporting characters useful? What if these characters already served their purpose and doesn't need anymore development?

[Avok]

So is it bad writing to not have supporting characters useful?

Yes, most of the time.

What if these characters already served their purpose and doesn't need anymore development?

Then you come up with ways for them to be relevant.

[Faisal Shourov]

I don't like Super, but pacing is the least of its problem. It's faster than any other Dragon Ball show, and incomparably so since Champa arc. You got 2 fights in 1 episode where DBZ had 7 episode for 1 fight.

For a long running show, Super is pretty damn fast.

[TekTheNinja]

So is it bad writing to not have supporting characters useful?

Yes.

What if these characters already served their purpose and doesn't need anymore development?

Characters are like real people in the sense that they never have to stop developing. And if you went by that logic, Goku and Vegeta should have stopped being relevant a long time ago. They don't grow as characters either. They're mainly just there to fight stuff now.

[Skar]

One of biggest complains i hear from people on Youtube, in regarding to Super, is amount of filler, and overall pacing, personally, i don't mind slice of life episodes, but there are people, who miss Kai pacing, with had almost no filler. and pacing was much faster.

The pacing is one of the things I like about Super (well the U6 saga anyway). I rather have a shorter, more focused saga and slice-of-life episodes afterwards than trying to stretch out the fights with long staredowns and filler. Plus it makes it easier for fans to skip the filler if they don't want to watch it since it's a separate episode and not buried into the actual story episodes. That's what I hated most about DBZ filler and the only ones I remember enjoying were the few instances of slice-of-life filler like Yamcha as a baseball player and Goku and Piccolo taking driving lessons. I realize it would've been harder to control the pacing back then since they had to slow down so the manga catches up while this time around they have the general outline of the saga before it even begins. I'm glad we got something like Kai. I didn't mind all the DBZ filler when I was young but it was hard to sit through it all when I re-watched the series as I got older.

[Saturnine]

Seeing how the Super anime doesn't base itself on any source material, I don't believe we are technically right to use the word "filler". Though I obviously know what you mean - Toei-invented story arcs with no involvement from Toriyama.

But the thing is, are you actually certain these are such? Just because an arc spans 3 episodes, do you take it on its own as proof enough that it wasn't Toriyama that drafted the plot for these eps?

[Neon Z]

Seeing how the Super anime doesn't base itself on any source material, I don't believe we are technically right to use the word "filler". Though I obviously know what you mean - Toei-invented story arcs with no involvement from Toriyama.

But the thing is, are you actually certain these are such? Just because an arc spans 3 episodes, do you take it on its own as proof enough that it wasn't Toriyama that drafted the plot for these eps?

There's also the lack of Toriyama lineart published for the new characters in this story and the lack of mention of these episodes in his recent words about Super's future. It's not definitive proof (I don't think we got lineart for Frost's final form, but it's likely a Toriyama design too), but right now I think there's more pointing to him not being involved with this story than being involved with it.

[TekTheNinja]

Seeing how the Super anime doesn't base itself on any source material, I don't believe we are technically right to use the word "filler". Though I obviously know what you mean - Toei-invented story arcs with no involvement from Toriyama.

But the thing is, are you actually certain these are such? Just because an arc spans 3 episodes, do you take it on its own as proof enough that it wasn't Toriyama that drafted the plot for these eps?

There's also the lack of Toriyama lineart published for the new characters in this story and the lack of mention of these episodes in his recent words about Super's future. It's not definitive proof (I don't think we got lineart for Frost's final form, but it's likely a Toriyama design too), but right now I think there's more pointing to him not being involved with this story than being involved with it.

Yeah it's totally filler, bro. There's no sidestepping it.