Does 'Super' have too much fanservice for the sake of it?

[Saikyo no Senshi]

Fan service isn't inherently bad. It all depends on the execution. I thought Vegetto was great fan service. Two minutes of ass kicking with some kick ass Shida cuts and energetic Hatano direction. On the other hand, the F arc and movie were horrible fan service with horrible execution.

But, yeah it is getting a little overboard. I know DBS producers love to blatantly pander to nostalgia, but the return of old characters and old ki attacks and callbacks and homages need to be reduced a little.

After a while, people just stop caring and the return of Freeza AGAIN AGAIN is one of those instances. I know some fans who don't give a fuck whatever purpose, good or bad Freeza is brought back for. They're not interested in the character anymore. They do not care. To an extent, I too do not care much about Freeza. If Trunks comes back again or Bardock comes back for example, no matter what they do I'm not going to bother. That's where fanservice starts becoming annoying and DBS has almost crossed that line.

Kale is the exception though. Despite her being a Broli clone, I like her. I'm pretty biased, I know. Her voice is great and I look forward to see how she performs in the ToP and also the Kale x Cauliflowa thing, if it happens would be cool.

[Shinomori]

Fan service isn't inherently bad. It all depends on the execution. I thought Vegetto was great fan service. Two minutes of ass kicking with some kick ass Shida cuts and energetic Hatano direction. On the other hand, the F arc and movie were horrible fan service with horrible execution.

But, yeah it is getting a little overboard. I know DBS producers love to blatantly pander to nostalgia, but the return of old characters and old ki attacks and callbacks and homages need to be reduced a little.

After a while, people just stop caring and the return of Freeza AGAIN AGAIN is one of those instances. I know some fans who don't give a fuck whatever purpose, good or bad Freeza is brought back for. They're not interested in the character anymore. They do not care. To an extent, I too do not care much about Freeza. If Trunks comes back again or Bardock comes back for example, no matter what they do I'm not going to bother. That's where fanservice starts becoming annoying and DBS has almost crossed that line.

Kale is the exception though. Despite her being a Broli clone, I like her. I'm pretty biased, I know. Her voice is great and I look forward to see how she performs in the ToP and also the Kale x Cauliflowa thing, if it happens would be cool.

Right, fan service doesn't automatically mean it's bad. My problem would come in with story telling. Vegetto was awesome (though the dumb time limit idea was dumb). Also, fan service and good story telling aren't mutually exclusive either. My thing is, the story telling aspect of DBS has been horrible since the end of BoG arc. In my opinion, because most probably don't agree with me, the story so far is ruining any build up the BoG arc had. God ki has become incredibly irrelevant, when I thought the premise of DBS was dealing with the gods. In any case, I've found the story telling to be horribly lacking and perhaps its because the show has gone overboard with the fan service.

[Shinda Forever]

Yeah, they have made a lot of fan service to saiyajin characters everyone else except Krillin was treated as trash.

[Envy]

I agree with Asura, this series has pretty much been pure fanservice from the very beginning.

At this point, I'm actually happy to see some of it. I liked seeing Vegetto again. I like Gohan getting powerful again (even though his family man characterization didn't bother me as I thought it was a logical conclusion based on his character from the beginning of Z). I even like seeing Freeza again. And of course female Super Saiyan, finally!

I just wish some of it was handled a little better... Like I wish the first female Super Saiyan was earned like Goku, Gohan, or Vegeta. Still, that's the direction the series has been taking for a very long time. Cabba's transformation wasn't much less ridiculous. However, when I look at it, the female Super Saiyan thing could have been handled worse, so I'll take it.

Kale being female Broly on the other hand... That I don't really understand. A woman Saiyan becoming Super Saiyan is just something natural that should have happened by now, but a character turning into Broly? Um... Not natural at all. Just straight-up fanservice with no reason.

[precita]

The worst thing Super could do is bring Bardock back and make him a Super Saiyan. That would be the last straw that breaks the camels back. I don't think I could support Super anymore if Bardock returned as a major character for an arc.

[Metalwario64]

Instead of bringing back Freeza for the millionth time, or the female Broly, I still wish we'd have gotten some actual neglected characters back, like Lunch. Maybe have Upa suddenly be super strong and return after all of these years and fight in the tournament, maybe because he began training super hard after Bora was revived because he was motivated by Goku's strength and wanted to be strong enough to protect his father/family if he had to. That, or maybe King Chappa or Namu.

It would work fine because power relativity is meaningless now (which would be a good thing if it were handled better, because there were too many times where a character was untouchable just because they were "stronger", but it was handled very sloppily because it just came out of nowhere after we already had the characters be helpless against the likes of Beerus and Freeza in the recent films and Super retellings).

The worst thing Super could do is bring Bardock back and make him a Super Saiyan. That would be the last straw that breaks the camels back. I don't think I could support Super anymore if Bardock returned as a major character for an arc.

Maybe the next arc will have a Universe 6 female Bardock who goes Super Saiyan because her back itches one day. [spoiler][/spoiler]

[Lord Beerus]

What really constitutes as fanservice in the eye of other beholder. The only narrative choices within about Super I would consider as pure fanservice is the return of Vegetto and Future Trunks, Freeza being brought back to life again and Broly's Legendary Super Saiyan form migrating into the latest arc. I think the notion of characters like Android 17 and Gohan being brought back to prominence as fanservices is nonsense. Especially in the case for Gohan, who is at the very least the tritagonist of the entire franchise. And Android 17 is still technically one of the ten strongest characters in the universe, so he has every right to be considered to be on the team in TOP.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Honestly, I just want to throw out this word. It's long since lost any useful meaning, and is used solely with derogatory connotations. That is, when it's being used to describe something accurately at all, as it's often used as a substitute for "I don't like this!". Akin to the fan-fiction label, it's a lost cause.

[precita]

I wish they'd give Boo some fanservice. Or Yamcha. lol.

[NitroEX]

Honestly, I just want to throw out this word. It's long since lost any useful meaning, and is used solely with derogatory connotations. That is, when it's being used to describe something accurately at all, as it's often used as a substitute for "I don't like this!". Akin to the fan-fiction label, it's a lost cause.

If you need to start banning words from people's vocabulary because you don't have a rebuttal, maybe it's time to re-examine the thing you're defending?

I for one don't have an issue with the fanservice label, I think it accurately sums up a lot of what we see from Super. Although, I don't think fem-Broly is really fan service, because I honestly find it hard to believe a large majority of fans (even Broly fans) wanted to see a female Broly. To me, that type of thing does seem like an idea that's straight out of fan fiction... and not the good kind.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

If you need to start banning words from people's vocabulary because you don't have a rebuttal, maybe it's time to re-examine the thing you're defending?

Excuse me? What exactly am I defending, and where did I advocate for banning words? Don't attack me with this nonsense. All I did was note that the word "fanservice" is useless and I want it to go away.

[precita]

If Gogeta shows up at some point in Super I'll laugh. That will be yet another example of fanservice bringing in a non-canon fusion into the main series.

[TBMx]

Reviving Frieza for 24 hours with Baba doesn't even make sense. SS3 Goku rapidly burned up all his time on Earth in the Buu Saga. Imagine how quick Golden Frieza would use up that time.

[MagmonKai]

I thought the whole point of this show and any show was to appease the audience? Otherwise it will turn into GT.

[GodKaio-Ken]

Reviving Frieza for 24 hours with Baba doesn't even make sense. SS3 Goku rapidly burned up all his time on Earth in the Buu Saga. Imagine how quick Golden Frieza would use up that time.

He only needs 48 minutes technically once the tournament starts.

[precita]

Reviving Frieza for 24 hours with Baba doesn't even make sense. SS3 Goku rapidly burned up all his time on Earth in the Buu Saga. Imagine how quick Golden Frieza would use up that time.

Goku had no idea how to control SSJ3 at the time. Likewise it was an unstable transformation to begin with, it has nothing to do with Freeza's power or his transformation.

[NitroEX]

If you need to start banning words from people's vocabulary because you don't have a rebuttal, maybe it's time to re-examine the thing you're defending?

Excuse me? What exactly am I defending, and where did I advocate for banning words? Don't attack me with this nonsense. All I did was note that the word "fanservice" is useless and I want it to go away.

And how exactly does a word "go away" without explicitly being barred from the conversation? It's pretty clear what you were implying there, which is the sentiment I disagree with. I also don't see how the word is useless, I rarely ever come across people misusing it (certainly not to the extent of words like "literally"), and even if that were the case, having a discussion about it is surely the better option.

As for what I perceived you to be defending, well, since the context of this thread conversation is Dragon Ball Super, and since you felt the need to speak up about the word being used in this context, it's reasonable to assume you have a problem with DBS plot and characters being described with said words. Now if I'm wrong, fine, but I'm not psychic, I'm just sticking to the conversation at hand.

[Gog]

Instead of bringing back Freeza for the millionth time, or the female Broly, I still wish we'd have gotten some actual neglected characters back, like Lunch. Maybe have Upa suddenly be super strong and return after all of these years and fight in the tournament, maybe because he began training super hard after Bora was revived because he was motivated by Goku's strength and wanted to be strong enough to protect his father/family if he had to. That, or maybe King Chappa or Namu.

Lunch isn't a neglected character she fulfilled her purpose in her arc, and she filled it well. Which was to be a gag. In fact I'd actually say Lunch is an absolute bore of a character, or at the very least her blue hair form. I'm not even sure why Upa should come back as well considering he's just another boring Kid Goku Esq character that I've seen a million times. King Chappa hasn't really done anything worth bringing him back, but I do admit he has potential. And Namu's character arc is done, it would be pretty redundant bringing him back after such a satisfying end to his character.

Even then none of those characters really offer anything interesting to the plot of the tournament.

For the thread at hand I would be a fool to deny the idea that many of Super's core concepts are fan service. But, even then I would argue that many of them are executed in such a way that they cease to be that. Goku Black is a great example. At his most basic idea he's evil, but he's a Universe 10 Kai who stole Goku's body, he's also polite, charming, smug, sadistic, and intelligent. What makes him great is that he's not actually evil Goku beyond the most basic sense.

There's also Freeza returning again which is shaping up to be one of the most interesting revelations of the arc.

[TBMx]

Reviving Frieza for 24 hours with Baba doesn't even make sense. SS3 Goku rapidly burned up all his time on Earth in the Buu Saga. Imagine how quick Golden Frieza would use up that time.

Goku had no idea how to control SSJ3 at the time. Likewise it was an unstable transformation to begin with, it has nothing to do with Freeza's power or his transformation.

Golden Frieza is an unstable transformation as well, in the same way of rapidly tiring the user. I have no idea what else you mean by "no idea how to control SS3". He simply couldn't regulate it's energy, but Frieza can't regulate Golden Frieza either.

Even if one were to highball it and say that Goku stayed on Earth then for 8 hours - note he didn't stay till dark and he didn't stay much longer than the duration of the tournament, that means that Goku's SS3 used up 16 hours in that short fight with Buu and transforming again at the lookout. I doubt Golden Frieza could last 48 minutes.

[Totamo]

Super's existence is pure fanservice.

Fanservice and storytelling don't have to be at odds with each othe. just like Marketing and art don't have to be.


Its about what you are trying to do. Super is basically an advertisement