"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Kenju]

Really hoping Trunks will do something cooler at the end of this arc except for just being a healer. It can make more sense than the anime but that doesn't make it more exciting more me than the anime

[Doctor.]

I just realized how many similarities this arc has to the Androids Arc/Cell Arc.

First we have Trunks show up to warn them, he also tests his power against Goku. Then we have the main villain constantly evolving, mid point during the evolution he loses to Vegeta. He never fight's Goku until he reaches his highest stage. Vegeta also evolves during the battle, replace SSJG here with Grade 2 in the Cell Arc.
Goku is smarter than Vegeta and get's a better result of the same objective: 100% SSJB is the same as Mastered SSJ.

You forgot the most important one: the time travel is horrendously convoluted.

The time travel in the original series wasn't very convoluted, it was simple and straight-forward. Toriyama just didn't pay enough attention to the details and ended up with a few plot holes on his hands. I know Trunks' world cannot function but that's more of a problem of the setting, not of the time travel mechanics.

[ekrolo2]

I just realized how many similarities this arc has to the Androids Arc/Cell Arc.

First we have Trunks show up to warn them, he also tests his power against Goku. Then we have the main villain constantly evolving, mid point during the evolution he loses to Vegeta. He never fight's Goku until he reaches his highest stage. Vegeta also evolves during the battle, replace SSJG here with Grade 2 in the Cell Arc.
Goku is smarter than Vegeta and get's a better result of the same objective: 100% SSJB is the same as Mastered SSJ.

You forgot the most important one: the time travel is horrendously convoluted.

The time travel in the original series wasn't very convoluted, it was simple and straight-forward. Toriyama just didn't pay enough attention to the details and ended up with a few plot holes on his hands. I know Trunks' world cannot function but that's more of a problem of the setting, not of the time travel mechanics.

The time travel doesn't make sense once Cell appears, there's just a whole other version of Trunks' timeline that exists because.... hell if I know. We didn't need two separate timelines, Cell easily could've hitched a ride on Trunks' initial trip to the past by latching onto his ship, buried his ass there and showed up without two new timelines that have no business existing being introduced. Given the fact its an apocalpyse in the future, you could easily say that Cell just didn't have enough people to eat to power himself up and needed to go back into the past so 17 and 18 didn't instantly wipe him out.

Or if another set of timelines NEED to exist, simply say that Bulma made a prototype time machine then went haywire and vanished on her and arrived a couple years into her past, thus splitting the timelines. Boom, problem solved.

[Doctor.]

You forgot the most important one: the time travel is horrendously convoluted.

The time travel in the original series wasn't very convoluted, it was simple and straight-forward. Toriyama just didn't pay enough attention to the details and ended up with a few plot holes on his hands. I know Trunks' world cannot function but that's more of a problem of the setting, not of the time travel mechanics.

The time travel doesn't make sense once Cell appears, there's just a whole other version of Trunks' timeline that exists because.... hell if I know. We didn't need two separate timelines, Cell easily could've hitched a ride on Trunks' initial trip to the past by latching onto his ship, buried his ass there and showed up without two new timelines that have no business existing being introduced. Given the fact its an apocalpyse in the future, you could easily say that Cell just didn't have enough people to eat to power himself up and needed to go back into the past so 17 and 18 didn't instantly wipe him out.

Or if another set of timelines NEED to exist, simply say that Bulma made a prototype time machine then went haywire and vanished on her and arrived a couple years into her past, thus splitting the timelines. Boom, problem solved.

Trunks' timeline exists because Trunks arrived in a timeline already tainted by Cell.

[ekrolo2]

The time travel in the original series wasn't very convoluted, it was simple and straight-forward. Toriyama just didn't pay enough attention to the details and ended up with a few plot holes on his hands. I know Trunks' world cannot function but that's more of a problem of the setting, not of the time travel mechanics.

The time travel doesn't make sense once Cell appears, there's just a whole other version of Trunks' timeline that exists because.... hell if I know. We didn't need two separate timelines, Cell easily could've hitched a ride on Trunks' initial trip to the past by latching onto his ship, buried his ass there and showed up without two new timelines that have no business existing being introduced. Given the fact its an apocalpyse in the future, you could easily say that Cell just didn't have enough people to eat to power himself up and needed to go back into the past so 17 and 18 didn't instantly wipe him out.

Or if another set of timelines NEED to exist, simply say that Bulma made a prototype time machine then went haywire and vanished on her and arrived a couple years into her past, thus splitting the timelines. Boom, problem solved.

Trunks' timeline exists because Trunks arrived in a timeline already tainted by Cell.

No, I meant the other Trunks' timeline, how does it exist to branch off into the unseen timeline when there's nothing connecting the two of apocalyptic futures?

[Doctor.]

The time travel doesn't make sense once Cell appears, there's just a whole other version of Trunks' timeline that exists because.... hell if I know. We didn't need two separate timelines, Cell easily could've hitched a ride on Trunks' initial trip to the past by latching onto his ship, buried his ass there and showed up without two new timelines that have no business existing being introduced. Given the fact its an apocalpyse in the future, you could easily say that Cell just didn't have enough people to eat to power himself up and needed to go back into the past so 17 and 18 didn't instantly wipe him out.

Or if another set of timelines NEED to exist, simply say that Bulma made a prototype time machine then went haywire and vanished on her and arrived a couple years into her past, thus splitting the timelines. Boom, problem solved.

Trunks' timeline exists because Trunks arrived in a timeline already tainted by Cell.

No, I meant the other Trunks' timeline, how does it exist to branch off into the unseen timeline when there's nothing connecting the two of apocalyptic futures?

You mean Cell's timeline? That's the original one.

Cipher explained it pretty well here.

[spoiler]Trunks and Cell create three timelines (bringing the series' total to four). There are two lines in Cell's dialogue that clutter up the series' time travel model to absurd degrees, so I'll cover those below and why they're better thrown out. It's just the kind of thing that happens writing by the seat of your pants week to week.*

A) The original timeline, which exists without intervention from any other time travelers, is Cell's -- the one in which he kills Trunks and steals his time machine. Of course, by the time he emerges, Trunks has already gone back to the past once and found an undisclosed way to defeat the androids, which brings us to ...

B) The second timeline, which is the "unseen" timeline altered only by Trunks. We know nothing about what happens here, but it must exist for Trunks to have found a way to defeat the androids in the original timeline. Once Cell kills this Trunks and goes back a year before he originally arrived, he creates ...

C) The third timeline, which is the timeline of the main series, altered by both Cell and Trunks. This is the one we see play out. Trunks arrives to meet Goku, and several years later, when he returns to help fight the androids, everyone realizes time has been further altered by a second time-traveler, whose time machine is found by Bulma in the woods. This turns out to be Cell.

This timeline confirms a couple of things people don't always pick up on. The most important is that Trunks' time machine appears to enter the last-altered past. Or rather, when events are changed, they create a sort of de-facto "past" it enters. Cell winds up in a timeline destined to have Trunks arrive in it, because that's what the past looks like at the point he steals the time machine. From another perspective, the Trunks we come to know as ours enters a past that has already been altered by Cell.

Coincidentally, this is also why Trunks is able to move back and forth between the main timeline and his own, as long as he always arrives after his last departure. More on that below.

D) The fourth timeline, which is Trunks' divergent future, the result of his experiences with Cell in the past. Technically Trunks' future would split off the moment he leaves after giving Goku the heart medicine, based on whatever butterfly-effect changes might have occurred due to Cell's presence. But the big difference is that after the meat of the arc is done, Trunks is able to return to his own time and defeat both the androids and Cell. This is "our" Future Trunks, whose experiences with Cell in the past wind up creating an alternate future timeline than the one that first existed.

*The lines of Cell's dialogue we have to throw out involve a comment about Trunks defeating Freeza and Cold in his timeline (despite Future Trunks remembering Goku doing the deed, and there being no reasons for their timelines to have split at that point), and a line about the time machine already being set to arrive a year before Trunks' original debut. The former just clutters things up to an absurd degree, and the latter -- while there are in-universe explanations; perhaps Trunks wanted to create yet another timeline totally free of the androids -- is more trouble than it's worth. Especially because it ignores the very tidy explanation that Cell has a four-year maturation period. If that's the case, it makes enough sense that he'd intentionally arrive four years prior to the androids' activation, to be able to absorb them as soon as possible.[/spoiler]

[ekrolo2]

Trunks' timeline exists because Trunks arrived in a timeline already tainted by Cell.

No, I meant the other Trunks' timeline, how does it exist to branch off into the unseen timeline when there's nothing connecting the two of apocalyptic futures?

You mean Cell's timeline? That's the original one.

Cipher explained it pretty well here.

[spoiler]Trunks and Cell create three timelines (bringing the series' total to four). There are two lines in Cell's dialogue that clutter up the series' time travel model to absurd degrees, so I'll cover those below and why they're better thrown out. It's just the kind of thing that happens writing by the seat of your pants week to week.*

A) The original timeline, which exists without intervention from any other time travelers, is Cell's -- the one in which he kills Trunks and steals his time machine. Of course, by the time he emerges, Trunks has already gone back to the past once and found an undisclosed way to defeat the androids, which brings us to ...

B) The second timeline, which is the "unseen" timeline altered only by Trunks. We know nothing about what happens here, but it must exist for Trunks to have found a way to defeat the androids in the original timeline. Once Cell kills this Trunks and goes back a year before he originally arrived, he creates ...

C) The third timeline, which is the timeline of the main series, altered by both Cell and Trunks. This is the one we see play out. Trunks arrives to meet Goku, and several years later, when he returns to help fight the androids, everyone realizes time has been further altered by a second time-traveler, whose time machine is found by Bulma in the woods. This turns out to be Cell.

This timeline confirms a couple of things people don't always pick up on. The most important is that Trunks' time machine appears to enter the last-altered past. Or rather, when events are changed, they create a sort of de-facto "past" it enters. Cell winds up in a timeline destined to have Trunks arrive in it, because that's what the past looks like at the point he steals the time machine. From another perspective, the Trunks we come to know as ours enters a past that has already been altered by Cell.

Coincidentally, this is also why Trunks is able to move back and forth between the main timeline and his own, as long as he always arrives after his last departure. More on that below.

D) The fourth timeline, which is Trunks' divergent future, the result of his experiences with Cell in the past. Technically Trunks' future would split off the moment he leaves after giving Goku the heart medicine, based on whatever butterfly-effect changes might have occurred due to Cell's presence. But the big difference is that after the meat of the arc is done, Trunks is able to return to his own time and defeat both the androids and Cell. This is "our" Future Trunks, whose experiences with Cell in the past wind up creating an alternate future timeline than the one that first existed.

*The lines of Cell's dialogue we have to throw out involve a comment about Trunks defeating Freeza and Cold in his timeline (despite Future Trunks remembering Goku doing the deed, and there being no reasons for their timelines to have split at that point), and a line about the time machine already being set to arrive a year before Trunks' original debut. The former just clutters things up to an absurd degree, and the latter -- while there are in-universe explanations; perhaps Trunks wanted to create yet another timeline totally free of the androids -- is more trouble than it's worth. Especially because it ignores the very tidy explanation that Cell has a four-year maturation period. If that's the case, it makes enough sense that he'd intentionally arrive four years prior to the androids' activation, to be able to absorb them as soon as possible.[/spoiler]

So, the two timelines we either barely or don't see are the originals and the main one's for both the past and present are the latest offshoots? Yea, this didn't need to happen, it's pointlessly over complicating something that could've been rectified by having Cell just hitch a ride on Trunks' initial trip into the past.

[Doctor.]

No, I meant the other Trunks' timeline, how does it exist to branch off into the unseen timeline when there's nothing connecting the two of apocalyptic futures?

You mean Cell's timeline? That's the original one.

Cipher explained it pretty well here.

[spoiler]Trunks and Cell create three timelines (bringing the series' total to four). There are two lines in Cell's dialogue that clutter up the series' time travel model to absurd degrees, so I'll cover those below and why they're better thrown out. It's just the kind of thing that happens writing by the seat of your pants week to week.*

A) The original timeline, which exists without intervention from any other time travelers, is Cell's -- the one in which he kills Trunks and steals his time machine. Of course, by the time he emerges, Trunks has already gone back to the past once and found an undisclosed way to defeat the androids, which brings us to ...

B) The second timeline, which is the "unseen" timeline altered only by Trunks. We know nothing about what happens here, but it must exist for Trunks to have found a way to defeat the androids in the original timeline. Once Cell kills this Trunks and goes back a year before he originally arrived, he creates ...

C) The third timeline, which is the timeline of the main series, altered by both Cell and Trunks. This is the one we see play out. Trunks arrives to meet Goku, and several years later, when he returns to help fight the androids, everyone realizes time has been further altered by a second time-traveler, whose time machine is found by Bulma in the woods. This turns out to be Cell.

This timeline confirms a couple of things people don't always pick up on. The most important is that Trunks' time machine appears to enter the last-altered past. Or rather, when events are changed, they create a sort of de-facto "past" it enters. Cell winds up in a timeline destined to have Trunks arrive in it, because that's what the past looks like at the point he steals the time machine. From another perspective, the Trunks we come to know as ours enters a past that has already been altered by Cell.

Coincidentally, this is also why Trunks is able to move back and forth between the main timeline and his own, as long as he always arrives after his last departure. More on that below.

D) The fourth timeline, which is Trunks' divergent future, the result of his experiences with Cell in the past. Technically Trunks' future would split off the moment he leaves after giving Goku the heart medicine, based on whatever butterfly-effect changes might have occurred due to Cell's presence. But the big difference is that after the meat of the arc is done, Trunks is able to return to his own time and defeat both the androids and Cell. This is "our" Future Trunks, whose experiences with Cell in the past wind up creating an alternate future timeline than the one that first existed.

*The lines of Cell's dialogue we have to throw out involve a comment about Trunks defeating Freeza and Cold in his timeline (despite Future Trunks remembering Goku doing the deed, and there being no reasons for their timelines to have split at that point), and a line about the time machine already being set to arrive a year before Trunks' original debut. The former just clutters things up to an absurd degree, and the latter -- while there are in-universe explanations; perhaps Trunks wanted to create yet another timeline totally free of the androids -- is more trouble than it's worth. Especially because it ignores the very tidy explanation that Cell has a four-year maturation period. If that's the case, it makes enough sense that he'd intentionally arrive four years prior to the androids' activation, to be able to absorb them as soon as possible.[/spoiler]

So, the two timelines we either barely or don't see are the originals and the main one's for both the past and present are the latest offshoots? Yea, this didn't need to happen, it's pointlessly over complicating something that could've been rectified by having Cell just hitch a ride on Trunks' initial trip into the past.

I agree that Toriyama needlessly complicated it, but I feel like it adds to the story and lore quite a bit more than it would have if there were only two timelines in total.

[HeroR]

How can you not compare? Did you see the time Goku took to activate Kaioken in the tournament? He still disperses the aura, concentrates quickly, and only then says Kaioken. Against Gattai Zamasu there was no prior preparation, he simply said "Kaioken" and ready. In the manga, Vegeta said that Goku's body could break with the dominated SSB, not to mention that during the fight, Goku suffered burns while trying to contain the Ki leak. It's as risky as the Kaioken

And it was extremely brief while Goku held the Kaioken for several minutes in the Champa Saga even before he went x10.

Nope, not as risky. Goku could have died just activating the Kaioken and it made Goku physically sick afterwards. The manga is closer to the Kaioken in the Saiyan Saga, that Goku readily abused.

[Miracles]

You forgot the most important one: the time travel is horrendously convoluted.

Trunks creates an alternate world when he kept Goku alive by going back in the past.
Therefore we have Trunks future world [universe 7] where Goku died and the past world [universe 7] where Goku is alive.
This equals only two different worlds in universe 7, past and future!

Where does Cell's appearance fit in all this...?

Cell first appears in the same alternate future world [where Goku is dead] three years later.
He finds out that the androids in this future world are already beaten.
That's because Trunks came back from the past world where the Z team already defeated perfect Cell and disposed of them.
So Trunks was heading back to the past world to let everyone know he defeated the androids in his future world too.
This is when Cell wasted Trunks. Then took the time machine and went four years back into the past.
Arriving one year before Trunks came and killed Freeza. Before Goku showed up to give him the medicine.
This is why Trunks was still able to freely travel because Cell killed Trunks three years later in the future world. Not realizing Trunks had already been to the past [Goku being alive].
Therefore that past world Trunks was not effected by the death of him in the future.

[andrewtuell1991]

No, I meant the other Trunks' timeline, how does it exist to branch off into the unseen timeline when there's nothing connecting the two of apocalyptic futures?

It's quite simple really. According to Dragon Ball time-travel logic, every time a trip to the past occurs, it branches the time-stream. Because Cell time-traveled to a point before Future Trunks' first time-travel, it split the timelines from 2 to 4. Because now there are two Future Trunks, a Future Trunks who came back in time when Cell hadn't already time-traveled back year one before him (we'll call him Future Trunks A) and one who came back when Cell had already existed on Earth for a year (we'll call him Future Trunks B aka the Future Trunks we all know).

Future Trunks A is implied to defeated his Androids by deactivating them using a remote control created in the unseen timeline (whether the Androids were deactivated or befriended in the unseen timeline remains unknown) and is killed by the Cell who travels back a year before Future Trunks first time travel.

Future Trunks B kills his Androids with brute strength and overwhelms Cell three years later.

So basically, Cell's time-travel more or less time-cloned Future Trunks' apocalyptic future into two different timelines to make up for the fact that we now had two Future Trunks. That's the best I can explain it.

[The gr]

Not related to DB, toyotaro Drew these,he seem to be a fan of the MCU [spoiler][/spoiler] that's cool too see, like how he reference star wars, perhaps we will get a reference to an MCU movie in his manga

[Scsigs]

So, is it a translation error that Vegeta called Goku by his Earth name rather than Kakarot, or no?

[Black Hawk]

So, is it a translation error that Vegeta called Goku by his Earth name rather than Kakarot, or no?

This is just my first thought, but I expect it had something to do with the space within the speech bubbles. "Goku" fits better with the limited space than does "Kakarot". It could be a different reason altogether, though.

[OLKv3]

So, is it a translation error that Vegeta called Goku by his Earth name rather than Kakarot, or no?

It's a common Viz mistake, they did it 2 chapters ago as well.

[LightBing]

So, is it a translation error that Vegeta called Goku by his Earth name rather than Kakarot, or no?

It's a common Viz mistake, they did it 2 chapters ago as well.

It really shouldn't happen. With just a word we lose a dimension of Vegeta's personality and partially of Goku's relation with Vegeta. Maybe the translator(s) never read Dragon Ball and therefore doesn't know the importance. Although that's not really an excuse.

[Lord Beerus]

So, is it a translation error that Vegeta called Goku by his Earth name rather than Kakarot, or no?

It's a common Viz mistake, they did it 2 chapters ago as well.

It really shouldn't happen. With just a word we lose a dimension of Vegeta's personality and partially of Goku's relation with Vegeta. Maybe the translator(s) never read Dragon Ball and therefore doesn't know the importance. Although that's not really an excuse.

I can't imagine how a error like Vegeta calling Goku "Goku" could happen as often as it does. I mean, it shouldn't be happening at all, to be frank.

[TKA]

Wait, you mean the manga used something established at the beginning of the arc (Trunks being the kaioshin's apprentice) during this, the conclusion of the arc? It's almost like the manga knows where it's going. It's almost like planning makes a story more coherent. Toei needs to realize it doesn't have the talent of spontaneity that Toriyama has, so it should plan stuff out more like Toyotaro is doing. Sure is a hell of a lot better way to give Trunks some focus instead of some bullshit, unexplained Super Saiyan transformation.

Also, very interesting that Goku and Vegeta found their own answers to Super Saiyan Blue's energy drain. Goku's is more powerful, while Vegeta's is more sustainable. Good. Vegeta has always been an endurance fighter, while Goku has a greater propensity for using powerful techniques that fuck up his body. That's good character work.

Finally, the way the potara fusions is more palatable here. In the anime, the characters knew the fusion wouldn't last, but said nothing AND made old Kai look stupid for what happened in the Buu arc. Here nobody knew, AND the same rules about the fusion's power also applies to Zamas. Good.

The manga is playing out unquestionably better than the anime. Next chapter, rocks could fall and everyone dies and it would still be better than the anime.

Edit: Read the last 20 pages. You guys just never learn. Always making judgments based on untranslated pages and rumors. VegettoEX cleared some posts, but left so many others. I shudder to imagine the quality of those deleted posts. Let me get to some nagging points I saw:

1. "Plot hole! Zamas used the ring!" No, that's not a plot hole. For Kaioshin to use the ring, he'd have to break protocol and be as deplorable as Zamas. That is obviously not even an option worth thinking about for him.

2. "SSB asspull!!111!" No, that's not a plot hole.

3. "GOKU COULD'VE USED IT ANYTIME!" Also, no. Well, he could've, but that would be stupid. He said it in this chapter that it's dangerous and not something he's even perfected. The only reason he's using it is because he has no choice and all other options have been exhausted.

[FortuneSSJ]

Toei needs to realize it doesn't have the talent of spontaneity that Toriyama has, so it should plan stuff out more like Toyotaro is doing. Sure is a hell of a lot better way to give Trunks some focus instead of some bullshit, unexplained Super Saiyan transformation.

For a moment I thought you were talking when Toriyama introduced SSJ3 in Buu arc.
Or when Goku/Vegeta got SSJ2, when in the previous arc it was established to be connected to Gohan's hidden potential.

[HeroR]

So Toyo planned out Goku having this mastered Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form with no foreshadowing or explaination as to why Goku didn't used it when Rose Black kicked Vegeta's butt or he tried to stall Merged Zamasu by himself last chapter. Or he can't be bother to explain why Black and Zamasu can used the Time Rings despite not being Supreme Kais, Or Trunks going through a ritual to gave him healing powers yet Shin and Kibito never bothered to tell him or Trunks questioned why he became an attendance.

Yeah, have to call BS. Nothing feels planned out here.

And I read the chapter. The Time Ring is a plot hole since the manga never said that only Supreme Kais using it was a protocol. Gowasu only said, you need to be a Supreme Kai. Nothing about rules.

Mastered Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan is an AssPull. No hints, no foreshadowing, it's just here. At least the Kaioken is a known technique. Here, Mastered Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan shouldn't raise Goku's power the way that it did.

Goku should have used this sooner. The moment Vegeta went down to Black, he should have used it to stomp him while Trunks handled Future Zamasu. It would have saved countless lives.