Dragonball franchise is getting too complicated for its own good

[Ki Breaker]

Dragon Ball is not that hard to follow and kids aren't stupid.

People don't understand this for some odd reason..
Hell I have seen kids grasp things which I never thought of at the moment..
Most of us got into Dragonball when we were kids didn't we

[Kunzait_83]

Why do you say that Toriyama was a machine? I know that Dragon Ball itself is extraordinarily long and even Dr. Slump was quite lengthy, but I've often heard that Toriyama is actually quite lazy and would always take the easy route, like making the characters fight in barren wastelands, turning Goku's hair gold so it wouldn't need inking in, few night time scenes so not as much inking, and of course the fact that he made it all up as he went along with little forethought. I'm not attacking you or anything, I'm just curious for your insight here.

I say he was a workhorse because, in spite of all those examples of corner-cutting you just mentioned, the dude still fully wrote and drew a wholly original serialized weekly comic for 11 straight years without ANY real period of hiatus or interruption and VERY few to almost virtually no weeks off. That, while also dabbling in writing/drawing a few other one off manga, and also working closely with a lot of the Toei anime production staff for the DB/Z anime.

I know that Toriyama has always generally had the heart of a slacker, but in practice he for a long time did still have an excellent work ethic in spite of that. Just imagine the sheer grind of having to come up with, outline, and then draw up chapter after chapter after chapter of this thing week in and week out for 11 motherfucking years, always keeping it fresh and moving, but still paying at least SOME attention to continuity and the wider narrative. I don't think many people here honestly realize the toll that eventually takes on someone, nor how IMMENSELY well Toriyama had managed to make a series he was pulling out of his ass as he went look not at ALL like that and give it the convincing veneer of something that was well planned out (something which is the FARTHEST thing in the world from easy to do).

Works of Dragon Ball's combination of unique and iconic distinctiveness, quality consistency, longevity, and general integrity (talking about solely the original run of the manga and anime from '84 to '96 here) don't at all happen very often, and it does indeed take a titanic, herculean amount of work to make something like that happen. Word has long had it that by the Boo arc, Toriyama was beyond drained - mentally and physically - from running on this particular treadmill for about a decade. He's NEVER again undertook a project of Dragon Ball's magnitude ever again, and I more than understand why that is.

Earlier in this thread precita I think leveled that charge at me that I was making arrogant assertions. Really though, to me it is the HEIGHT of arrogance of so many fans to still harbor this burning desire to (metaphorically speaking) drag Toriyama by his collar from retirement, slam a worktable in front of him with various Dragon Ball sketches and concepts/ideas scattered about, and all but scream in his face "MAKE MORE DRAGON BALL STUFF HAPPEN NOW! MAKE IT JUST AS GOOD AS LAST TIME!"

The dude is A) old and in a much deserved state of semi-retirement, B) worked on this shit every goddamned week for 11 straight years (again with no periods of hiatus), putting out a work that is LONG and DENSE as all fuck in scope uninterrupted with absurd regularity, reliability, and consistency. Yeah he cut a few corners here and there, but 1) that's COMPLETELY understandable and more than justified given his workload, and 2) more times than not he disguised it VERY well (how many people would've immediately guessed that part of the reason for inventing SSJ was an excuse to not have to ink Goku's hair all of the time?), again lending to Dragon Ball's level of quality consistency week in and week out.

That's a large part of the reason for my general amazement and befuddlement at this insatiable thirst so many fans have for more and more new Dragon Ball. How in the fucking hell is 42 manga volumes, 555 anime episodes, 17 anime movies, and enough video games to fill a small home across just about every single platform in existence from the 8 bit era on down - how in the FUCK is all THAT still not deemed enough? Like by ANYONE'S sane metrics? Like I said earlier, this was hardly a series that was cut down before its prime. Dragon Ball was stretched about as far and as thin as you could conceivably allow it (some would argue stretched too far beyond what it could handle) and almost no one could possibly find fault or blame for Toriyama just finally ending it when he did.

Again I'm one of the relatively few people here who remembers fandom back during the original Japanese run before FUNimation, but I can certainly attest: people were in the throes of IMMENSE Dragon Ball fatigue by the time the latter end of the Boo saga came about. Plenty of fans thought the series had long overstayed its welcome by then and had passed the point where it could've/should've just ended gracefully. I was never in that camp I admit, but I still vividly remember a time in 1995 when the attitude of "Ugh, is Dragon Ball STILL going? It hasn't ended yet? Fucking hell, enough already!" was not at all very hard to come across in manga/anime fandom. Nevermind once GT started.

When GT finally ended, a lot of folks were practically popping champagne corks. "The juggernaut finally goes down for keeps." was a lot of the general outlook. There was a sense of genuine finality, like Dragon Ball was never coming back after that, and it was generally perceived as a GOOD thing. All things must end and such, all things are finite, and those that try to be never ending usually end up horrible at some point eventually.

Of course that was a much different time and a hugely different type of audience. Its still surreal though for me to see people today having the exact OPPOSITE outlook. Instead of seeing it as "A once very cool series that just way overstayed its welcome and didn't know when to quit." now the view towards Dragon Ball is "Come back Dragon Ball! Please don't go! Never leave us again!"

I should probably stop talking there lest I delve too deeply into comparing fandom generations (something I've been long, LONG meaning to do in its own thread), but yeah. Dragon Ball used to never be seen as this thing that should be eternally endless and constantly shitting out new content just for the sake of having it, quality be damned, without anyone ever getting sick of it or being unable to see that what was already there was MORE than plentiful enough.

[sintzu]

Why do you say that Toriyama was a machine? I've often heard that Toriyama is actually quite lazy and would always take the easy route.

Writing nearly 750 chapters on a weekly basis for 15+ years makes him anything but lazy.

There's no easy route When you're doing that kind of work.

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball is an evergreen property that will continue to exist onward only as such. Toriyama doesn't quite have the artistic sensibility to force the end of the franchise's milking and the producers involved with these new projects are in no way interested in allowing a creator to have full control over a project, which means for the time being Dragon Ball projects will continue on their path of monetization without potentially offensive.

[Kunzait_83]

Dragon Ball is an evergreen property that will continue to exist onward only as such. Toriyama doesn't quite have the artistic sensibility to force the end of the franchise's milking and the producers involved with these new projects are in no way interested in allowing a creator to have full control over a project, which means for the time being Dragon Ball projects will continue on their path of monetization without potentially offensive.

Right but like... that wasn't at all the case for what, about 17 years? Between GT's end and the first new bit of Super material (Battle of Gods movie), Dragon Ball was stone cold dead. That time was filled in here in North America with a lot of chirp chirp chirping over the FUNimation dub and all the absurd drama that came with that, but that was entirely on our end and had utterly zero bearing on Japan's end of things. Then there was Kai, but that was nothing at all remotely new, just a hollowing out of DBZ's corpse by Toei.

The JSAT special happened in '09 I think, but that was almost too inconsequential to matter for much. Battle of Gods marks the first genuine true return of Dragon Ball with actual NEW material after 17 years of absolutely nothing. What makes this particular well of cash so ripe for exploiting NOW in the mid 2010s that it wasn't at any other point prior since fucking 1997?

People in American fandom have such a skewed and unreliable perspective on all this because from as late as 1999/2000 or so, its been ALL new to them (even though it was well worn material from as far back as almost 15 years prior). Dragon Ball's "end" point for a lot of fans here is whenever it was FUNimation finally finished dubbing all there was to dub, which was what? 2005 or 06 or some insanely late year like that? The gap doesn't feel anywhere NEAR as strong or massive from that perspective of treating DB not as a late 80s/early 90s series but as a late 90s/early 2000s one.

Taking aside all of the tedious dubbing drama on America's end as well as whatever the fuck you'd classify Kai as being, Dragon Ball was a mummified corpse of a franchise for 17 fucking years straight. Not much different than many other franchises of its era that just had their time, then ended for keeps.

I don't see what it is about NOW all of a sudden where we're all locked into this "Dragon Ball as a never ending content-spewing machine that we're all gonna ride into infinity and the great unknown" narrative. What changed exactly?

[VegettoEX]

I don't see what it is about NOW all of a sudden where "We're all locked into this Dragon Ball as a never ending content-spewing machine and are gonna ride this bitch into infinity and the great unknown". What changed exactly?

They finally woke the fuck up and recognized how much (more) money the series was making internationally.

That being said, they simultaneously can't enter the goddamn 21st century and actually make a coherent series of products that can internationally support themselves, rather than a disparate line of nonsense that half works domestically and only a quarter works internationally.

They talk big, make sweeping decisions, talk big some more, panic, make more things, panic again, make yet more sweeping decisions, pat themselves on the back, and get confused when everyone else gets confused yet somehow it's all making just enough money for no-one to come in the board office and demand some actual responsibility for said walking corpse's future.

[precita]

Worth noting I said SOME of them still suck all these years later. Others have obviously improved (and a few recast entirely, to much better effect), but my point is at this point in the 2010s how is it that anyone can still be bothered to give a shit anymore? Enough to get invested in yet another "reversioning" of the original series (this one done by Toei). I don't get it, but that's just like, my OPINION man. Obviously. They don't all have to be sugar coated up the yin yang and made pleasant.

I think you just don't realize how popular the dub still is in the west. The Dragonball series dubs has millions of viewers on Cartoon Network, not to mention the people who bought the DVDs FOR the dub (these people likely never switch to the subs even though its on the same DVDs), or the ones who watch the show online on youtube or whatever to relive their childhood nostalgia. On top of that, the people who watched the Kai or now the Super dub, would obviously WANT them to improve in terms of voices. You think people wanted them all to stay the same way as they sounded back in 1999 when they first started? Of course not. The dub voices improved with each passing saga they did originally, by the time the Buu arc started most of them had settled into their roles.

And as I said, given Kai and now Super's high ratings on Cartoon Network, to say most people "don't care about the dub" is just plain wrong. There are literally millions of people watching the dub still. Millions. You really underestimate what the American Dragonball fandom is really like, probably because there are less dub fans here on Kazenshuu than anywhere else online.

[nickzambuto]

Snip Snap

I see. Thank you for the thorough reply. I honestly never thought of it that way. I've always been on the defensive that Toriyama is a very talented writer when people try to knock Dragon Ball's literary quality, but I never actually considered him to be a particularly hard worker. But when you consider his level of commitment to this franchise, I guess we really shouldn't underestimate him. He undersells himself, I think.

I'd personally be very interested in that thread comparing the fandom generations. It's something I've wanted to learn about for a long time actually.

[Hellspawn28]

You really underestimate what the American Dragonball fandom is really like, probably because there are less dub fans here on Kazenshuu than anywhere else online.

He has been a fan since 1991 or 1992 when most of the users here was not born yet, just been born or where in Pre-School when the old DBZ fan subs on VHS tapes was being produced. He has been a fan long enough to know what the US DB fandom is like.

[Doctor.]

A newcomer should start with Dragon Ball, move to Z or Kai, then Super, then GT.

It's not exactly hard. Now with Star Wars, I have no idea where to start because each fan I meet gives me a different order to watch the series in.

[VegettoEX]

A newcomer should start with Dragon Ball, move to Z or Kai, then Super, then GT.

It's not exactly hard. Now with Star Wars, I have no idea where to start because each fan I meet gives me a different order to watch the series in.

You're literally saying the exact same thing for DB as Star Wars, though.

Z or Kai? In which language? Why? What are the differences? Why are the differences there? What are the pros and cons of each way?

That is complicated.

[Doctor.]

A newcomer should start with Dragon Ball, move to Z or Kai, then Super, then GT.

It's not exactly hard. Now with Star Wars, I have no idea where to start because each fan I meet gives me a different order to watch the series in.

You're literally saying the exact same thing for DB as Star Wars, though.

Z or Kai? In which language? Why? What are the differences? Why are the differences there? What are the pros and cons of each way?

That is complicated.

I don't think the language question is a valid one. You watch movies in what language? The original one, right? Most movies are English, so you'll be able to understand them, but what if said movie is in German or French? You don't watch Downfall with English voices, you watch the German version with subtitles so you can understand. It all comes down to common sense, really. Watch it in Japanese if you want to retain the original artistic integrity and meaning of the product, switch to the dub if it's not for you. Like with any medium, I think the original language, regardless of whether you understand it or not, should always be given a chance first. If it's not for you, then you have alternatives.

Perhaps Star Wars wasn't the best example, because I don't really know whether or not the series is complicated, since I never really tried to research and get into the series beyond having conversations with people and, when they bring it up, asking "Oh, so where should I start?" I guess that mirrors the same sentiment of sorta-wanting-to-get-into-the-series-but-not-wanting-to-put-in-the-effort that newcomers may experience, and I realize know how having two or more different versions of the same story may be a turn-off for the people not willing to do the research and just want to sit down and get into it. But, at the same time, I think having multiple versions gives more alternatives to the newcomers that actually do bother to search on Google for five minutes.

[JulieYBM]

Dragon Ball is an evergreen property that will continue to exist onward only as such. Toriyama doesn't quite have the artistic sensibility to force the end of the franchise's milking and the producers involved with these new projects are in no way interested in allowing a creator to have full control over a project, which means for the time being Dragon Ball projects will continue on their path of monetization without potentially offensive.

Right but like... that wasn't at all the case for what, about 17 years? Between GT's end and the first new bit of Super material (Battle of Gods movie), Dragon Ball was stone cold dead. That time was filled in here in North America with a lot of chirp chirp chirping over the FUNimation dub and all the absurd drama that came with that, but that was entirely on our end and had utterly zero bearing on Japan's end of things. Then there was Kai, but that was nothing at all remotely new, just a hollowing out of DBZ's corpse by Toei.

The JSAT special happened in '09 I think, but that was almost too inconsequential to matter for much. Battle of Gods marks the first genuine true return of Dragon Ball with actual NEW material after 17 years of absolutely nothing. What makes this particular well of cash so ripe for exploiting NOW in the mid 2010s that it wasn't at any other point prior since fucking 1997?

People in American fandom have such a skewed and unreliable perspective on all this because from as late as 1999/2000 or so, its been ALL new to them (even though it was well worn material from as far back as almost 15 years prior). Dragon Ball's "end" point for a lot of fans here is whenever it was FUNimation finally finished dubbing all there was to dub, which was what? 2005 or 06 or some insanely late year like that? The gap doesn't feel anywhere NEAR as strong or massive from that perspective of treating DB not as a late 80s/early 90s series but as a late 90s/early 2000s one.

Taking aside all of the tedious dubbing drama on America's end as well as whatever the fuck you'd classify Kai as being, Dragon Ball was a mummified corpse of a franchise for 17 fucking years straight. Not much different than many other franchises of its era that just had their time, then ended for keeps.

I don't see what it is about NOW all of a sudden where we're all locked into this "Dragon Ball as a never ending content-spewing machine that we're all gonna ride into infinity and the great unknown" narrative. What changed exactly?

I believe what changed was the growing influence of social media. A producer's existence is based upon whether or not they can find an audience and exploit it. Social media and phone/Facebook games have giving us the rise projects like The Angry Birds Movie, after all. Popular culture is released into the wild and then perpetuated by social media. Dragon Ball, already having an established brand, is a ripe idea for a starter. We got the 2008 special because Toriyama was willing to develop a draft for a one-off special. We got Dragon Ball Kai because Toriyama was unwilling to create a new story line, but Torishima, Toei Animation (Morishita Kouzou specifically?) and Bandai wanted to reactivate their brand. We got the 2010 special to revitalize a dying console circuit and we got the 2012 special because Dragon Ball Heroes was actually, finally, starting to help the franchise pick up. I think Kami to Kami was a natural evolution of these things:

• Producer's afraid of making anything that isn't safe, so they rely on Dragon Ball again. Dragon Ball is an established brand and the producer, who we have already established as being too afraid to break the rule, brings in Toriyama to completely redo the independent creator's (Watanabe Yuusuke) story.
• The 2008, 2010 and 2012 specials are storyboarded and directed by Ueda Yoshihiro, one of Toei's oldest and still active directors who directed dozens of episodes of the first three series as well as Dragon Ball Z Movie #11. Ueda's directing is tasteless and his catalogue of work goes to show that his role at Toei is that of a general workhorse. For Kami to Kami long-time franchise producer Morishita Kouzou gives the film to Hosoda Masahiro, another practically decrepit director who has never shown promise or talent. Like Ueda, Hosoda directed on Dragon Ball Z, but his main connection to Morishita is his time as his understudy.
• After briefly handing the reigns of Dragon Ball animation to the young, energetic and brilliant Hayashi Yuuki for the Nippon Ijin Taishou special in 2007 Morishita brings back Yamamuro Tadayoshi for all Dragon Ball animation since 2008. Rather than working to the strengths of his animators, Yamamuro actively over-corrects animation to erase the charms of each animator. His character designs are derided by other animators (Kameda Yoshimichi) as unpleasant and his personal key animation no longer has the smart timing it occasionally had in the past.
• Morishita has Yamamuro help him storyboard his first film in decades, Buddha. Yamamuro is also allowed to storyboard for Kami to Kami (the boring battle between Beers and the Z Warriors). Later, Yamamuro is allowed to storyboard the Openings and Endings of the Majin Buu arc of Dragon Ball Kai, perhaps the least exciting Openings Dragon Ball has ever had.
• For the 2013 Toriko x One Piece x Dragon Ball Z crossover the chief animation supervisor for Dragon Ball characters is Ide Takeo, another long-time animator for the franchise who hasn't improved as an animator or even moved up in the industry past animation supervision despite decades having passed. Thankfully, Ide isn't as draconian as Yamamuro and we get to see the animation of Shida Naotoshi left uncorrected for the climatic Super Saiyan 3 Gokuu scene in One Piece Episode #590.
• Yamamuro is given his first real directing role in his mid-fifties: he's selected as the director of the fifteenth Dragon Ball Z film. Yamamuro storyboards the entire movie in a month (your regular episode takes three weeks to storyboard) by himself, creates the animation character designs by himself, and acts as animation supervisor. Despite recruiting talented young animators like Hayashi Yuuki and Watanabe Koudai as key animators and assistant animation supervisors their work is nearly unrecognizable to fans. Yamamuro gives a scene to franchise veteran and respected animator Eguchi Hisashi, telling him he can even ignore the storyboard, then proceeds to correct his scene to the point of unrecognizable. When Eguchi discuss this with Satou Masaki (animation supervisor of Dragon Ball Z #64, key animator for various episodes under Maeda Minoru) they call him a big fish in a small pond who clings to one series.
• "Fukkatsu no F is a fucking box office hit! Oh, shit, time to make a new series. We'll get Toriyama to write the plot...but shit, we need this series to premier in three months but are producing five other series, films, commercials and other shit all at once! Let's give the series to one of our best director and then fuck him over by not supporting him any!"
• Dragon Ball Super is giving to Chioka Kimitoshi, whose only other experience with the franchise is storyboarding the first act or so of the 2013 film. Although he was series director of Hakaba Kitarou, Chioka has spent the past few years helping to alleviate Toei Animation's scheduling problems by focusing only on storyboarding...yet in the forty-six episodes that Chioka reigned as series director of Dragon Ball Super he never once had time to storyboard for the series. Not a single episode or Opening animation. Chioka is brought on at the last second and forced to inherit Yamamuro as character designer & sakuga kanshu and Sumitomo Nobuhito as composer. This is practically unheard of for a new series. That screams producer (Morishita?) interference. The Japanese animation industry is typically known for its director and animator-led series, not producer-led series.
• Talented animators avoid Dragon Ball Super like the plague or simply are not asked to work on the series. Likely a combination of the chaotic production schedule (which only gets worse as time passes) and the fact that Yamamuro's designs suck and he forces everyone to stick to them closely.
• Since damned near nobody wants to work on Dragon Ball Super who gets called in? Old directors and animators, most of which never improved or somehow got worse: Imammura Takahiro, Hakamada Yuuji and Shimanuki Masahiro return as storyboard artists and animation supervisors.
• Shida Naotoshi doesn't work on Dragon Ball Super as an animator until Episode #57, a three year absence for a franchise veteran who is actually better than he was when he worked on the first three series. This could be due to Yamamuro or the bad scheduling.
• Tate Naoki, the only other animator from the first three series to return and who has actually improved in the eighteen year gap is consistently fucked over by poor scheduling, having to correct the work of bad animators and having to stick close to the character models. Tate hardly has time to make use of the character animation and fight animation skills he gained while working on One Piece back in 2007-2010 that put him on the map.
• Hatano Morio is made series director starting on Episode #33. Not only is he given the role mid-cour, he's credited first, before Chioka. As of Episode #68 Hatano Kouhei (no relation) has done the same, bumping Hatano down to the second credited series director. After storyboarding and directing Episodes #6 and #14 Hatano Morio disappeared. During his reign as a series director Hatano only had the time to personally storyboard and direct Episode #66, the big climax of the story arc, which itself paled in comparison to his big, exciting episodes for Saint Seiya Omega during his time as series director of that series. What's more, Episode #66 has two animation supervisors, one of which is the older and slower Shimanuki Masahiro. Although Shida Naotoshi provides a minute of battle animation for the episode, it's much less wild than his work usually is. Ootsuka Ken and Miuma Kenji also provide key animation for the episode, but it's hyper conservative. Again, the production schedule set by rushing the series into production is biting it in the ass.

I'd keep going, but I have to go to work. :p Suffice it to say, I think there's a tremendous issue with the franchise being stuck in an environment that isn't creator-friendly and this is a symptom of a larger issue: the old blood is choking the new blood in an attempt to capitalize on an evergreen property.

[ABED]

Star Wars is an infinitely less complicated decision to make regarding how you watch it since it's primarily a series of movies whereas DB is a much longer running manga or TV series.

[Kunzait_83]

I think you just don't realize how popular the dub still is in the west. The Dragonball series dubs has millions of viewers on Cartoon Network, not to mention the people who bought the DVDs FOR the dub (these people likely never switch to the subs even though its on the same DVDs), or the ones who watch the show online on youtube or whatever to relive their childhood nostalgia. On top of that, the people who watched the Kai or now the Super dub, would obviously WANT them to improve in terms of voices. You think people wanted them all to stay the same way as they sounded back in 1999 when they first started? Of course not. The dub voices improved with each passing saga they did originally, by the time the Buu arc started most of them had settled into their roles.

And as I said, given Kai and now Super's high ratings on Cartoon Network, to say most people "don't care about the dub" is just plain wrong. There are literally millions of people watching the dub still. Millions. You really underestimate what the American Dragonball fandom is really like, probably because there are less dub fans here on Kazenshuu than anywhere else online.

You really DON'T want to hear what I have to say about ANY of these points you mention. You really, really, REALLY don't. If you thought my tone was somehow "too nasty" earlier, you have no EARTHLY fucking idea the monster that would be unleashed if I went into any of what you're talking about in any remote detail. I'm swallowing back the kind of toxic bile on this subject the likes of which would melt your face off, Brundlefly-style. I'm granting you the most charitable kind of mercy here in staying my hand, mainly (as always in the past) due to deference/respect for Mike and his strict "keep it shonen" policy here. I don't shit on the carpet of another guy's house, and this place is ultimately his home, and I respect the rules enough to follow them.

Instead I'll simply address this part:

And as I said, given Kai and now Super's high ratings on Cartoon Network, to say most people "don't care about the dub" is just plain wrong. There are literally millions of people watching the dub still. Millions. You really underestimate what the American Dragonball fandom is really like, probably because there are less dub fans here on Kazenshuu than anywhere else online.

I NEVER ONCE said that "millions of fans don't care about the dub". I acknowledge that they DO indeed care about it very much of course. I simply expressed bafflement and incomprehension as to WHY/HOW they could still care all this much time later. Its thuddingly obvious that the dub is unsalvagable slop once the rose-tinted goggles come off. But I just answered my own question right there: the rose tinted goggles simply NEVER come off for these kinds of fans.

[ABED]

NEVER ONCE said that "millions of fans don't care about the dub". I acknowledge that they DO indeed care about it very much of course. I simply expressed bafflement and incomprehension as to WHY/HOW they could still care all this much time later. Its thuddingly obvious that the dub is unsalvagable slop once the rose-tinted goggles come off. But I just answered my own question right there: the rose tinted goggles simply NEVER come off for these kinds of fans.

The dub of DBZ? Is the Super dub bad?

[Kunzait_83]

NEVER ONCE said that "millions of fans don't care about the dub". I acknowledge that they DO indeed care about it very much of course. I simply expressed bafflement and incomprehension as to WHY/HOW they could still care all this much time later. Its thuddingly obvious that the dub is unsalvagable slop once the rose-tinted goggles come off. But I just answered my own question right there: the rose tinted goggles simply NEVER come off for these kinds of fans.

The dub of DBZ? Is the Super dub bad?

We were talking about DBZ's dub in general and in relation to Kai.

The Super dub only just recently started I think a very short time ago and is barely that far in. I haven't watched it, nor do I really ever intend to. I'm not actively following Super now (and haven't been for some time now), nor am I at all someone who remotely gives two shits about whatever FUNimation happens to be doing at any given moment (as I'd just thoroughly established earlier).

[ABED]

The Kai dub is great, so I wouldn't lump it in with nearly anything prior, certainly not DBZ. My guess is Super follows this trend.

[Gog]

Dragon Ball is an evergreen property that will continue to exist onward only as such. Toriyama doesn't quite have the artistic sensibility to force the end of the franchise's milking and the producers involved with these new projects are in no way interested in allowing a creator to have full control over a project, which means for the time being Dragon Ball projects will continue on their path of monetization without potentially offensive.

Right but like... that wasn't at all the case for what, about 17 years? Between GT's end and the first new bit of Super material (Battle of Gods movie), Dragon Ball was stone cold dead. That time was filled in here in North America with a lot of chirp chirp chirping over the FUNimation dub and all the absurd drama that came with that, but that was entirely on our end and had utterly zero bearing on Japan's end of things. Then there was Kai, but that was nothing at all remotely new, just a hollowing out of DBZ's corpse by Toei.

The JSAT special happened in '09 I think, but that was almost too inconsequential to matter for much. Battle of Gods marks the first genuine true return of Dragon Ball with actual NEW material after 17 years of absolutely nothing. What makes this particular well of cash so ripe for exploiting NOW in the mid 2010s that it wasn't at any other point prior since fucking 1997?

People in American fandom have such a skewed and unreliable perspective on all this because from as late as 1999/2000 or so, its been ALL new to them (even though it was well worn material from as far back as almost 15 years prior). Dragon Ball's "end" point for a lot of fans here is whenever it was FUNimation finally finished dubbing all there was to dub, which was what? 2005 or 06 or some insanely late year like that? The gap doesn't feel anywhere NEAR as strong or massive from that perspective of treating DB not as a late 80s/early 90s series but as a late 90s/early 2000s one.

Taking aside all of the tedious dubbing drama on America's end as well as whatever the fuck you'd classify Kai as being, Dragon Ball was a mummified corpse of a franchise for 17 fucking years straight. Not much different than many other franchises of its era that just had their time, then ended for keeps.

I don't see what it is about NOW all of a sudden where we're all locked into this "Dragon Ball as a never ending content-spewing machine that we're all gonna ride into infinity and the great unknown" narrative. What changed exactly?

I believe what changed was the growing influence of social media. A producer's existence is based upon whether or not they can find an audience and exploit it. Social media and phone/Facebook games have giving us the rise projects like The Angry Birds Movie, after all. Popular culture is released into the wild and then perpetuated by social media. Dragon Ball, already having an established brand, is a ripe idea for a starter. We got the 2008 special because Toriyama was willing to develop a draft for a one-off special. We got Dragon Ball Kai because Toriyama was unwilling to create a new story line, but Torishima, Toei Animation (Morishita Kouzou specifically?) and Bandai wanted to reactivate their brand. We got the 2010 special to revitalize a dying console circuit and we got the 2012 special because Dragon Ball Heroes was actually, finally, starting to help the franchise pick up. I think Kami to Kami was a natural evolution of these things:

• Producer's afraid of making anything that isn't safe, so they rely on Dragon Ball again. Dragon Ball is an established brand and the producer, who we have already established as being too afraid to break the rule, brings in Toriyama to completely redo the independent creator's (Watanabe Yuusuke) story.
• The 2008, 2010 and 2012 specials are storyboarded and directed by Ueda Yoshihiro, one of Toei's oldest and still active directors who directed dozens of episodes of the first three series as well as Dragon Ball Z Movie #11. Ueda's directing is tasteless and his catalogue of work goes to show that his role at Toei is that of a general workhorse. For Kami to Kami long-time franchise producer Morishita Kouzou gives the film to Hosoda Masahiro, another practically decrepit director who has never shown promise or talent. Like Ueda, Hosoda directed on Dragon Ball Z, but his main connection to Morishita is his time as his understudy.
• After briefly handing the reigns of Dragon Ball animation to the young, energetic and brilliant Hayashi Yuuki for the Nippon Ijin Taishou special in 2007 Morishita brings back Yamamuro Tadayoshi for all Dragon Ball animation since 2008. Rather than working to the strengths of his animators, Yamamuro actively over-corrects animation to erase the charms of each animator. His character designs are derided by other animators (Kameda Yoshimichi) as unpleasant and his personal key animation no longer has the smart timing it occasionally had in the past.
• Morishita has Yamamuro help him storyboard his first film in decades, Buddha. Yamamuro is also allowed to storyboard for Kami to Kami (the boring battle between Beers and the Z Warriors). Later, Yamamuro is allowed to storyboard the Openings and Endings of the Majin Buu arc of Dragon Ball Kai, perhaps the least exciting Openings Dragon Ball has ever had.
• For the 2013 Toriko x One Piece x Dragon Ball Z crossover the chief animation supervisor for Dragon Ball characters is Ide Takeo, another long-time animator for the franchise who hasn't improved as an animator or even moved up in the industry past animation supervision despite decades having passed. Thankfully, Ide isn't as draconian as Yamamuro and we get to see the animation of Shida Naotoshi left uncorrected for the climatic Super Saiyan 3 Gokuu scene in One Piece Episode #590.
• Yamamuro is given his first real directing role in his mid-fifties: he's selected as the director of the fifteenth Dragon Ball Z film. Yamamuro storyboards the entire movie in a month (your regular episode takes three weeks to storyboard) by himself, creates the animation character designs by himself, and acts as animation supervisor. Despite recruiting talented young animators like Hayashi Yuuki and Watanabe Koudai as key animators and assistant animation supervisors their work is nearly unrecognizable to fans. Yamamuro gives a scene to franchise veteran and respected animator Eguchi Hisashi, telling him he can even ignore the storyboard, then proceeds to correct his scene to the point of unrecognizable. When Eguchi discuss this with Satou Masaki (animation supervisor of Dragon Ball Z #64, key animator for various episodes under Maeda Minoru) they call him a big fish in a small pond who clings to one series.
• "Fukkatsu no F is a fucking box office hit! Oh, shit, time to make a new series. We'll get Toriyama to write the plot...but shit, we need this series to premier in three months but are producing five other series, films, commercials and other shit all at once! Let's give the series to one of our best director and then fuck him over by not supporting him any!"
• Dragon Ball Super is giving to Chioka Kimitoshi, whose only other experience with the franchise is storyboarding the first act or so of the 2013 film. Although he was series director of Hakaba Kitarou, Chioka has spent the past few years helping to alleviate Toei Animation's scheduling problems by focusing only on storyboarding...yet in the forty-six episodes that Chioka reigned as series director of Dragon Ball Super he never once had time to storyboard for the series. Not a single episode or Opening animation. Chioka is brought on at the last second and forced to inherit Yamamuro as character designer & sakuga kanshu and Sumitomo Nobuhito as composer. This is practically unheard of for a new series. That screams producer (Morishita?) interference. The Japanese animation industry is typically known for its director and animator-led series, not producer-led series.
• Talented animators avoid Dragon Ball Super like the plague or simply are not asked to work on the series. Likely a combination of the chaotic production schedule (which only gets worse as time passes) and the fact that Yamamuro's designs suck and he forces everyone to stick to them closely.
• Since damned near nobody wants to work on Dragon Ball Super who gets called in? Old directors and animators, most of which never improved or somehow got worse: Imammura Takahiro, Hakamada Yuuji and Shimanuki Masahiro return as storyboard artists and animation supervisors.
• Shida Naotoshi doesn't work on Dragon Ball Super as an animator until Episode #57, a three year absence for a franchise veteran who is actually better than he was when he worked on the first three series. This could be due to Yamamuro or the bad scheduling.
• Tate Naoki, the only other animator from the first three series to return and who has actually improved in the eighteen year gap is consistently fucked over by poor scheduling, having to correct the work of bad animators and having to stick close to the character models. Tate hardly has time to make use of the character animation and fight animation skills he gained while working on One Piece back in 2007-2010 that put him on the map.
• Hatano Morio is made series director starting on Episode #33. Not only is he given the role mid-cour, he's credited first, before Chioka. As of Episode #68 Hatano Kouhei (no relation) has done the same, bumping Hatano down to the second credited series director. After storyboarding and directing Episodes #6 and #14 Hatano Morio disappeared. During his reign as a series director Hatano only had the time to personally storyboard and direct Episode #66, the big climax of the story arc, which itself paled in comparison to his big, exciting episodes for Saint Seiya Omega during his time as series director of that series. What's more, Episode #66 has two animation supervisors, one of which is the older and slower Shimanuki Masahiro. Although Shida Naotoshi provides a minute of battle animation for the episode, it's much less wild than his work usually is. Ootsuka Ken and Miuma Kenji also provide key animation for the episode, but it's hyper conservative. Again, the production schedule set by rushing the series into production is biting it in the ass.

I'd keep going, but I have to go to work. :p Suffice it to say, I think there's a tremendous issue with the franchise being stuck in an environment that isn't creator-friendly and this is a symptom of a larger issue: the old blood is choking the new blood in an attempt to capitalize on an evergreen property.

It seems like the three main problem's with Dragon Ball Super is the rushed production, Yamamuro's ass designs, and the old blood choking out the new blood. I propose solutions for these problems, Dragon Ball Super should possibly? (I don't know what would happen) break for a month or two. Yamamuro should be kicked off Dragon Ball Super, and someone competent should be put in charge. And finally we must purge the old blood to make way for the new blood.

[precita]

The Super dub only just recently started I think a very short time ago and is barely that far in. I haven't watched it, nor do I really ever intend to. I'm not actively following Super now (and haven't been for some time now), nor am I at all someone who remotely gives two shits about whatever FUNimation happens to be doing at any given moment (as I'd just thoroughly established earlier).

So that was my point then, I know you don't care about the dub, so why are you so angry about it? If you have stored in rage going back more than two decades to the 90's and early 2000's that's not exactly a good thing for something you have no interest in either way.