The Main Character(s)

[Chuquita]

Gokû's a big reason why I'm still following the franchise. Why I'm watching Super. He's my favorite regardless of the bad spot he's dropped himself into as of episode 77. He's a fun yet flawed character. I like characters that can flip back and forth between cute and badass. I worry about how he's going to deal with unfolding events, but the fact that I am worried means I'm invested.

Conversely, despite Vegeta being my second favorite, he's gotten less interesting the more mature and family oriented he's gotten. I respect him for it, but story wise he's getting a little bland.

[sintzu]

Z got repetitive with its formula of getting Goku out of the way and the audience playing the waiting game until he showed up.

DB was also repetitive. no matter what was going on, the focus was always on Goku. no matter how impressive someone or something was, all the talk was about how more Goku was.

In Z for example, when Piccolo fused with Kami and surpassed Ssj, it was about him. you didn't have anyone saying "if Piccolo is that strong then Goku is even stronger". or "If Piccolo is fighting evenly with #17 then Goku could beat him with his eyes closed".

In DB Goku was this untouchable being who couldn't lose to anyone or anything and everyone ponted it out every minute while in Z he's like everyone else. he doesn't have a plot shield that prevents him from truly losing.

[ABED]

Z got repetitive with its formula of getting Goku out of the way and the audience playing the waiting game until he showed up.

DB was also repetitive. no matter what was going on, the focus was always on Goku. no matter how impressive someone or something was, all the talk was about how more Goku was.

In Z for example, when Piccolo fused with Kami and surpassed Ssj, it was about him. you didn't have anyone saying "if Piccolo is that strong then Goku is even stronger". or "If Piccolo is fighting evenly with #17 then Goku could beat him with his eyes closed".

In DB Goku was this untouchable being who couldn't lose to anyone or anything and everyone ponted it out every minute while in Z he's like everyone else. he doesn't have a plot shield that prevents him from truly losing.

That's not a repetitive plot. The main character being mentioned is par for the course. It's no different in Z, they are all constantly talking about Goku. When Piccolo fused with Kami, it was important for a minute, in the meanwhile, everyone was still waiting for Goku. In the Saiyan arc, his friends spend most of the fight saying things like "Wait untile Goku arrives, he'll show you!" and "Goku, why aren't you here?"

In DB, Goku wasn't untouchable. He lost all the time. He lost 2 tournaments, was almost killed by Blue and Tao Pai Pai, had to be saved by Ha-chan from White, was left for dead by both Tambourine and Piccolo Daimao. He wasn't even the one to save the day in the Pilaf arc.

[sintzu]

He lost 2 tournaments.

was almost killed by Blue and Tao Pai Pai.

had to be saved by Ha-chan from White.

was left for dead by both Tambourine and Piccolo Daimao.

He wasn't even the one to save the day in the Pilaf arc.

Roshi and Tien's victories were pure luck, they even said so themselves. Roshi said he only won because Goku's leg was short and Tien said he would've lost if that car didn't hit Goku. That's the complete opposite of how Goku lost fights in Z. when he lost a fight in Z he really lost. Vegeta broke every bone in his body for example.

Didn't he get both of them soon after ? when he lost to someone in Z he never got back at them and 3 of the 4 villains he couldn't beat 1 on 1 which never happened in DB.

The reaosn he gave up to White was to...why did he give up again ? wasn't it to save #8 ?

He beat both of them soon after.

Wasn't he the one to turn into the ape and get everyone out of Pilaf's trap ?

[ABED]

He lost 2 tournaments.

was almost killed by Blue and Tao Pai Pai.

had to be saved by Ha-chan from White.

was left for dead by both Tambourine and Piccolo Daimao.

He wasn't even the one to save the day in the Pilaf arc.

Roshi and Tien's victories were pure luck, they even said so themselves. Roshi said he only won because Goku's leg was short and Tien said he would've lost if that car didn't hit Goku. That's the complete opposite of how Goku lost fights in Z. when he lost a fight in Z he really lost. Vegeta broke every bone in his body for example.

Didn't he get both of them soon after ? when he lost to someone in Z he never got back at them and 3 of the 4 villains he couldn't beat 1 on 1 which never happened in DB.

The reaosn he gave up to White was to...why did he give up again ? wasn't it to save #8 ?

He beat both of them soon after.

Wasn't he the one to turn into the ape and get everyone out of Pilaf's trap ?

Roshi's victory wasn't luck, his longer legs gave him greater power in his final attack. It was pure skill. Strategy is hardly luck. Tenshinhan was a fluke, but a loss is still a loss and it wouldn't have gotten that far had Tenshinhan not been as strong as he was.

He didn't get back at Vegeta in a fight, but he surpassed him by a huge margin rather quickly. I'll take DB's choreography over Z's most any day.

Goku turned Great Ape inadvertently, it was Oolong who stopped Pilaf's wish, and Yamcha who cut Goku's tail. And why does it matter why he had to be saved from White? He still had to be saved.

Z is not better for having Goku constantly side lined. It's so repetitive. It happens in EVERY arc. Christ, it happens TWICE in the Freeza arc. The Cell arcs and Buu arcs PALE in comparison to DB. You say it's all about Goku but in Z there's nothing else other than "where's Goku!?" "If only Goku was here!" Goku's the main character and for some reason that bothers you. In the Cell arc, Toriyama tries to put the spotlight on Gohan and it doesn't work. In the Buu arc, the focus keeps changing and the story has a schizophrenic quality as a result.

[sintzu]

Goku's the main character and for some reason that bothers you.

During Z Goku is my favorite character over Vegeta during certain situations so he doesn't bother me there at all.

I just like it when he doesn't get too much screen time cause that makes what he gets that much better.

[ABED]

I prefer the main character to not be used sparingly. That's what bugs me about every Mad Max movie other than the first. He often feels irrelevant in his own films. I want protagonists to be actively driving the story. They should be the focal point of the story which doesn't impede a good writer's ability to give supporting characters plenty to do.

[incarnati0n]

He lost 2 tournaments.

was almost killed by Blue and Tao Pai Pai.

had to be saved by Ha-chan from White.

was left for dead by both Tambourine and Piccolo Daimao.

He wasn't even the one to save the day in the Pilaf arc.

Roshi and Tien's victories were pure luck, they even said so themselves. Roshi said he only won because Goku's leg was short and Tien said he would've lost if that car didn't hit Goku. That's the complete opposite of how Goku lost fights in Z. when he lost a fight in Z he really lost. Vegeta broke every bone in his body for example.

Didn't he get both of them soon after ? when he lost to someone in Z he never got back at them and 3 of the 4 villains he couldn't beat 1 on 1 which never happened in DB.

The reaosn he gave up to White was to...why did he give up again ? wasn't it to save #8 ?

He beat both of them soon after.

Wasn't he the one to turn into the ape and get everyone out of Pilaf's trap ?

Roshi's victory wasn't luck, his longer legs gave him greater power in his final attack. It was pure skill. Strategy is hardly luck. Tenshinhan was a fluke, but a loss is still a loss and it wouldn't have gotten that far had Tenshinhan not been as strong as he was.

He didn't get back at Vegeta in a fight, but he surpassed him by a huge margin rather quickly. I'll take DB's choreography over Z's most any day.

Goku turned Great Ape inadvertently, it was Oolong who stopped Pilaf's wish, and Yamcha who cut Goku's tail. And why does it matter why he had to be saved from White? He still had to be saved.

Z is not better for having Goku constantly side lined. It's so repetitive. It happens in EVERY arc. Christ, it happens TWICE in the Freeza arc. The Cell arcs and Buu arcs PALE in comparison to DB. You say it's all about Goku but in Z there's nothing else other than "where's Goku!?" "If only Goku was here!" Goku's the main character and for some reason that bothers you. In the Cell arc, Toriyama tries to put the spotlight on Gohan and it doesn't work. In the Buu arc, the focus keeps changing and the story has a schizophrenic quality as a result.

Gohan didn't work in the cell arc by what metric?
Besides the thing about Z is not that it was needed for Goku to be sidelined, it was that Goku being sidelined made it much easier to incorporate the rest of the characters in the story and give them relevant roles. The frieza and cell saga are great examples of this with us having the strongest being a different fighter at different points alternatic between goku, gohan, vegeta and piccolo and others like krillin and tien giving heavy contribution at some points as well which is much better than for example the situation we have now in Super where all the character feel like fodder in comparison to Goku and Vegeta.

[ABED]

He's in the background for most of the arc, so him taking center stage feels very sudden. Even when he is in the final fight, it feels like he's acting as Goku's proxy. There's no real relationship between the supposed central character and the big bad. His moral quandary is completely out of the blue, and when he's ready to give up before Goku gives him a pep talk, it's a less than inspiring trait in your protagonist.

it was that Goku being sidelined made it much easier to incorporate the rest of the characters in the story and give them relevant roles.

Much of the time that relevant role was simply buying time. Goku didn't need to be sidelined in the quest for the Dragon Balls on Namek. The Cell arc isn't a great example since Piccolo merging with Kami while cool is of little consequence. ANd the other characters besides Goku contributed to the story in DB. You don't need to take away focus from the protagonist just to give other characters something important to do, and it can be counterproductive if what they do doesn't amount to much beyond padding the story.

[incarnati0n]

He's in the background for most of the arc, so him taking center stage feels very sudden. Even when he is in the final fight, it feels like he's acting as Goku's proxy. There's no real relationship between the supposed central character and the big bad. His moral quandary is completely out of the blue, and when he's ready to give up before Goku gives him a pep talk, it's a less than inspiring trait in your protagonist.

it was that Goku being sidelined made it much easier to incorporate the rest of the characters in the story and give them relevant roles.

Much of the time that relevant role was simply buying time. Goku didn't need to be sidelined in the quest for the Dragon Balls on Namek. The Cell arc isn't a great example since Piccolo merging with Kami while cool is of little consequence. ANd the other characters besides Goku contributed to the story in DB. You don't need to take away focus from the protagonist just to give other characters something important to do, and it can be counterproductive if what they do doesn't amount to much beyond padding the story.

That's what I said, Goku wasn't needed to be sidelined for the other characters to also get shine. Sidelining Goku was just a crutch used by toriyama to make this easier. This is evidenced now in Super where Goku is on the frontlines all the time and all the other characters apart from Goku and Vegeta feel useless altough while Z had scaling villains in each saga while in Super is pretty much just the main villain and no escalation like dodoria and zarbon to the ginyu force to frieza or for example weak androids to strong androids to cell.

[Vijay]

Naruto even deserve to be mentioned here? No offence to OP

There are a TON of shows out there that'll put Naruto to shame if you're looking for main protagonist role shift instead of "swap" which he got at tail end of Cell Saga & dangerously close in Buu Saga

For instance, FMAB, Inuyasha: Final Act & HXH2011

I'm not a diehard fan of these shows but gotta praise worthy shows

While FMAB has over 100 characters ranging frm State Alchemists, Chimeras, Homunculi, Ishavalans, etc the central focus always jiggles between Ed & Al

Likewise, Sesshy may be edgier, Kagome the wiser & Miroku the smartest but its always Inuyasha who acts as the driving force

HXH2011 is a special one. Be it generic Hunters Tourney, Underground Mafia/Don or Human vs Chimera Ant WarFare, the focus always puts Gon & Killua in the limelight

Hell, personally felt late Chairman Isaac Netero to be the REAL savior of CA Arc, but hey the undercurrent tension/development of Gon came full circle at tail end of the Arc until he meets certain someone....

As you can see, DBZ does this to great effect

1. Spotlight on Piccolo, Gohan & Kuririn in Saiyan Arc (while Son Goku was dead, travelling along Snake Way, training with King Kai etc)

2. Spotlight on Veggie, Frieza's gang, Namekians, Gohan & Kurrin in Namek/Frieza Arc

3. Spotlight on Future Trunks, Veggie, Piccolo, Androids & humans in Cell Arc

4. Spotlight on Gohan, Veggie, Goten, Trunks (Saiyans characters in general) with heavy emphasize on Next Gen fighters which was THANKFULLY UNDONE

[Basaku]

but switching main characters after years with the same character is a bad idea. I've never seen it done well

Batman Beyond, Star Trek: The Next Generation, enitre Green Lantern series throughouth its 80 years history, the new Star Wars trilogy is putting former iconic leads in suporting mentor roles while letting new generation shine.

There are tons of examples, some of them even going as far as eclipsing the original protagonists in popularity, your knowledge beyond DB is extremly limited. And Goku being lead in Super adds nothing and doesn't make it the best it could be. He's static, a caricature of his own tropes, mentaly regressing, unexciting and overall makes nothing to lift Super above mediocrity. On the contrary, he's adding to it. He's been stale since Buu saga and should've been replaced long ago. His developement ended in Cell era, after that he didn't bring anything interesting to the table.

[Puaru]

I kind of liked the concept they had going in DBZ of Goku for one reason or another often being absent from the other major characters. I felt it gave Goku's own character some real gravity from a narrative point of view. For much of DBZ, Goku almost came of more as some kind of deity than a regular person; someone whom people adored and always wanted to be close to, but who was often absent, only to show up and save the situation when things looked at their darkest. I don't know, it was just a very particular kind of relationship the DBZ version of Goku had with the other characters and therefore also with the audience. A lot of DBZ was every bit as much about characters such as Gohan and Vegeta reacting TO Goku as it was about the doings of Goku himself. A very faschinating situation to me. Also, although I love Goku as a character, he is admitatly leaning towards being of the type that can actually get a little annoying when there is TO much of him. He is so eccentric that I feel that he works best when the focus isn't always on him, because he can honestly get a little grating at times. His eccentric out-of-this-universe persona needs to be balanced out with characters with a more realistic psychology, like Vegeta with his real human flaws or Gohan and his relative normality.

[Lord Beerus]

Part of what kept Toriyama going with the plot was Goku's unconditional desire to keep on training, exploring new places and want to get stronger at every turn. Toriyama tried to make it work with Gohan but just didn't fit the criteria for the Toriyama wanted to tell and liked to tell. Gohan had one of those characteristics that made Goku such a workable protagonist in every department. The only characteristic that Gohan had that made him, for a certain period, work as a progtanist for the sort of story that Dragon Ball is, was wanting to get stronger. And that characteristic was dropped once it became peaceful on Earth.

But I digress, having a battle built around a character who doesn't even like fighting to begin with is huge risk, because Toriyama's writing style doesn't really work well outside the confines of poop jokes and characters beating each other to death for shallow reasons. So unless Toriyama wanted to plan on making a slice-of-life/battle manga hybrid kind of story, much like JJBA Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable, then Gohan wouldn't have worked as a main character. I mean, in Toriyama's own word Gohan's character just didn't fit the mould for the kind of story he wanted to tell. And given the nature of Dragon Ball's narrative, I don't know if there is any character, that isn't a Goku clone, who would be a suitable replacement for Goku as the main character. I've never really understood the issue with Goku being the central focus of stories in Dragon Ball. I mean, he is the main character of the whole damn franchise. Sure, you can put the focus on other characters, but Goku is still the de facto poster boy for the whole franchise.

[ABED]

but switching main characters after years with the same character is a bad idea. I've never seen it done well

Batman Beyond, Star Trek: The Next Generation, enitre Green Lantern series throughouth its 80 years history, the new Star Wars trilogy is putting former iconic leads in suporting mentor roles while letting new generation shine.

There are tons of examples, some of them even going as far as eclipsing the original protagonists in popularity, your knowledge beyond DB is extremly limited. And Goku being lead in Super adds nothing and doesn't make it the best it could be. He's static, a caricature of his own tropes, mentaly regressing, unexciting and overall makes nothing to lift Super above mediocrity. On the contrary, he's adding to it. He's been stale since Buu saga and should've been replaced long ago. His developement ended in Cell era, after that he didn't bring anything interesting to the table.

I should clarify, it's okay when protagonists change, but it's never better than the original. I've never seen it. Your Batman Beyond example is terrible since Terry isn't that interesting. The most interesting character in Batman Beyond is Bruce. What's the most interesting part of Return of The Joker? The flashback. Terry's okay, but he's not answhere as interesting as Bruce. Hal remains my favorite Green Lantern. No one else comes close. The new Star Wars trilogy is successful because it's a brand. The new characters aren't interesting, much less as interesting as Han, Leia, and Luke Episode 7 was a pale imitation of the original. The old leads should still be the leads as the new generation is awful. God awful! If this is them shining, then bury the franchise because I don't give a rat's ass. They are retreading old stories and as a result, I don't give a crap. I want to see old friends in new situations, not Luke just taking off his hood at the last second or Han dying and the emotion not landing. As for Trek, I've never been a big fan. Name a few other examples because I would hardly call my knowlege limited.

Whether Goku is static as a character doesn't mean someone else should take over. At that point, either end the story or develop the character further.

some of them even going as far as eclipsing the original protagonists in popularity

Such as? And don't say Gohan because that sure as hell isn't true.

[rereboy]

Hal remains my favorite Green Lantern

Hal is not the original green lantern.

[ekrolo2]

Whether Goku is static as a character doesn't mean someone else should take over. At that point, either end the story or develop the character further

It certainly does imply that the people writing him are out of ideas if they can write several arcs where nothing worthwhile happens to him and the one thing that does is just "Hey guys! Look how selfish Goku is for risking everyone's lives over his boredom again!"

[ekrolo2]

Hal remains my favorite Green Lantern

Hal is not the original green lantern.

Neither is Barry the original Flash but most people latch on to Wally as the best one and he's not the original or even the one immediately after Jay.

[ABED]

Hal remains my favorite Green Lantern

Hal is not the original green lantern.

The original, Alan Scott, was a completely different concept. There was no GL Corp. It was a magical ring. Hal was for all intents and purposes, the original.

It certainly does imply that the people writing him are out of ideas if they can write several arcs where nothing worthwhile happens to him and the one thing that does is just "Hey guys! Look how selfish Goku is for risking everyone's lives over his boredom again!"

Fair point, which is why it would be better if they ended it.

Neither is Barry the original Flash but most people latch on to Wally as the best one and he's not the original or even the one immediately after Jay.

Many of them started reading during the huge boom in the 90s so they create the emotional attachment to the version they know. The reason I remembered Barry was The Flash was when I started reading, I had already seen the TV series back in the early 90s.

[ekrolo2]

Fair point, which is why it would be better if they ended it.

Under the current regime? Yeah, it should end. Super is suffering from the same problem GT did in that the Kid Boo fight pretty much resolves almost everyone's characters arcs and because you've got Toriyama, who clearly has nothing left to say with anyone, spearheading this, you just get "Goku and Vegeta do stuff - The Series!".

The only one who's had a good direction to go into is Gohan and Toryiama once again kills it because his plot lines dictate everything and in those, Gohan does nothing. I'm not even a Gohan fan and I find this grating as all hell to watch.