What happened to having henchmen?

[Xeztin]

From what I recall, the last saga/movie we had that had a "boss" and henchmen was Freeza and perhaps Bojack. RoF had henchmen but it was again with Freeza. A boss having lackies to do his dirty work was pretty prominent in Dragon Ball all the way up to the Namek Saga. After this, it becomes a stand alone villain. Do you guy's think it would be good to have a boss and henchman type group of villain's again in the next or future saga? I feel like henchmen was how the cast stayed on screen for the longest time as they had a role to play. What do you think? Doesn't have to be an entire empire, could be a group of brothers with one of them being the big hancho for all I care. I just miss this type of setup as even Freeza has abandoned the use of henchmen.

[Duo]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

[Ziegander]

Jiren has Toppo and Dyspo.

[Chuquita]

Maybe we'll get some in the next arc if the next arc has a main villain in it. ToP isn't the best venue for henchmen, imo, since there's no clear-cut main villain. And while the idea of Zamasu having an army of himself in a variety of different bodies sounds hilarious, it probably wouldn't work out as well in execution the way just him and Goku Black as a duo does.

[TekTheNinja]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

[Ki Breaker]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

If that happens when Goku and Vegeta are around, which they are all the time nowadays, then aren't the weaker characters acting as their henchmen, ain't nobody wants to see a fight between lackeys when the main dudes stand around staring each other..

[Polyphase Avatron]

Maybe we'll get some in the next arc if the next arc has a main villain in it. ToP isn't the best venue for henchmen, imo, since there's no clear-cut main villain. And while the idea of Zamasu having an army of himself in a variety of different bodies sounds hilarious, it probably wouldn't work out as well in execution the way just him and Goku Black as a duo does.

There was an army of him in the manga.

[TheZFighter]

I've always been a fan of henchmen. I think henchmen in both sagas and movies often make some of the more interesting and better designed characters, though often sticking to similar patterns (big muscly humanoid, big muscly "alienoid", pretty boy, fat guy, shorty, etc). Obviously Cell and Buu weren't really made to have henchmen, unless you want to count Cell Jr's and Babidi's crew. I'd like to see henchmen being used again in the future.

I've always thought that henchmen could be used in a way similarly to how they're used in, say, One Piece, for example, as a means of keeping the rest of the main cast involved. The problem is I'd prefer to see "original" Dragon Ballers like Yamcha, Krillin, Tien, Chiaotzu and Yajirobe remaining involved by facing henchmen, but instead it'd probably be Gohan, Piccolo, Trunks and Goten, while Goku and Vegeta face the main guys.

[emperior]

Jiren has Toppo and Dyspo, who had the other Pride Troopers as their henchmen. It also looks like Paparoni has henchmen, as he can control other robots.
And you are all forgetting that Freeza is basically making his teammates his henchmen, and he also had new henchmen in RoF.

[Chuquita]

Maybe we'll get some in the next arc if the next arc has a main villain in it. ToP isn't the best venue for henchmen, imo, since there's no clear-cut main villain. And while the idea of Zamasu having an army of himself in a variety of different bodies sounds hilarious, it probably wouldn't work out as well in execution the way just him and Goku Black as a duo does.

There was an army of him in the manga.

This is true. The thought I had as more in the gag-manga type sense though that you'd have not just Goku Black, but something like in addition to that you'd have a Piccolo Black, a Vegeta Black, a Future Trunks Black, etc; members of the regular cast except all these doppelgangers are body-snatching Zamasus. I was thinking more along the lines of something comedic than the genuine danger that was in the manga of there being an army of identical Merged Zamasus.

[Duo]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

The fact the hour special was focused on Goku seems to be distracting you from realizing how much content in the tournament has not just been focused on those two. I would say Vegeta has been used pretty conservatively thus far, and Goku's already spent his stamina/usefulness until further notice. Gohan vs Obuni, Hit vs Dyspo, the Roshi episode, Hit vs Jiren. Not exactly henchmen, but those did not significantly involve Goku or Vegeta (except the Dyspo fight). The entirety of the Pride Troopers basically turned out to be Henchmen (who just scream justice instead of murder), just to be ousted by two new characters from Universe 6. I am way more upset with how poorly Tenshinhan was handled in comparison to every other Universe 7 character. Yamcha would have at least made it funny somehow.

[Bullza]

Henchmen mostly ruin Shonen manga so I'd rather they not have them.

[Jigurashi]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

You mean whatever happened to weaker characters getting their asses kicked and Goku almost always needing to show up and clean house?

[Lionel]

Henchmen implies some perceived amount of competency or wortwhileness in the eyes of a more amply equipped character. Freeza had the remnants of the Planet Trade Organisation's forces to command during the RoF arc. However, as we all know, they were all a pale imitation of the group's former glory, with Tagoma being the only notable exception. Keep in mind that Freeza represents the best of native ningen in the seventh universe. Anything and everyone stronger than him has either been of some primordial nature, they were artificially constructed, or they hailed from a different dimension.

At this time, Jiren represents the crème de la crème of all multiversal ningen. Once this arc has resolved itself and Jiren is defeated, who all will be able to challenge Goku that isn't minimally on par with the Hakaishin or greater? For the others to be given an opportunity to fight would entail a scenario like the one in the early android arc or RoF where the main character was unavailable due to some hindering circumstance. What's more, for those such as the earthlings or Piccolo to have a hope of successfully battling them would necessitate these henchmen being millions of times weaker than the leader who is primed for Goku since they're all weaker than the Saiyans in their normal golden forms. Mind you, the power disparity between Freeza in his final form and Appule is vastly smaller than the needed disparity to give some validation to the non Saiyans at this point.

When minions can't even grasp a fraction of a single percentage point of your strength, you have to wonder what worth they have since the odds are high that they won't possess a unique ability to compensate for their weakness like Guldo did.

If you ask me, the best hope for anyone that isn't Goku or a Saiyan would be learning this Ultra Instinct ability. They need to master it, incorporate it into their style, and then embellish things with something major like god ki and Kaioken x1000 to have a hope of gaining some headway -- even then, I don't believe they could match Goku.

[TekTheNinja]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

The fact the hour special was focused on Goku seems to be distracting you from realizing how much content in the tournament has not just been focused on those two. I would say Vegeta has been used pretty conservatively thus far, and Goku's already spent his stamina/usefulness until further notice. Gohan vs Obuni, Hit vs Dyspo, the Roshi episode, Hit vs Jiren. Not exactly henchmen, but those did not significantly involve Goku or Vegeta (except the Dyspo fight). The entirety of the Pride Troopers basically turned out to be Henchmen (who just scream justice instead of murder), just to be ousted by two new characters from Universe 6. I am way more upset with how poorly Tenshinhan was handled in comparison to every other Universe 7 character. Yamcha would have at least made it funny somehow.

The elimination counts speak for themselves. Hell, Goku and Vegeta soloed almost all of universe 9. You're either bullshitting me or have way too low of expectations.

[TekTheNinja]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

You mean whatever happened to weaker characters getting their asses kicked and Goku almost always needing to show up and clean house?

Watching the side cast hold off the the bad guy is more exciting than watching Goku roflstomp him. It's the saiyan arc's best part. Always thought the humans, Piccolo, and Gohan should have taken out Nappa, but it's still fun.

[Duo]

Stuff

Bullshitting? Get serious. My expectations are that there will be some great episodes, some bad episodes, and a lot of stuff in between. Dragon Ball is neither trash nor high art. The ToP has not generally surprised or disappointed me very much. I take the elimination of U9 as a way to make room for other universes. I admit that it's kinda crazy how many people Vegeta has taken out, but it also fits the size of his ego appropriately. We all knew this tournament would have cheese and main cast slant. I'm impressed by how controlled those things have been, honestly.

The Saiyan arc is actually my favorite arc, for the record, and the two surrounding arcs compete for 2nd place. I appreciate what you're talking about, but I'd be surprised to see this current era of DB really go that far away from established cast. Doesn't make sense from a marketing standpoint. The fact we got a two episode arc devoted to Great Saiyaman is still a miracle. Mainline Dragon Ball isn't going to take the same risks old-school Toriyama could get away with.

[Jigurashi]

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

You mean whatever happened to weaker characters getting their asses kicked and Goku almost always needing to show up and clean house?

Watching the side cast hold off the the bad guy is more exciting than watching Goku roflstomp him. It's the saiyan arc's best part. Always thought the humans, Piccolo, and Gohan should have taken out Nappa, but it's still fun.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely would have enjoyed seeing the supporting cast actually be successful against the henchmen. Would have been completely fine with Kuririn killing Nappa, and Vegeta killing most of them off. With that said, I don't agree with them getting stomped by the henchmen the best part. I quite prefer Goku kicking their asses to seeing the others accomplishing nothing of note.

[Ilikepictures-meh]

The ToP has accomplished something similar by having such an absurd amount of characters present all at once.

I still miss the Ginyu Force, though. So much love.

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

If that happens when Goku and Vegeta are around, which they are all the time nowadays, then aren't the weaker characters acting as their henchmen, ain't nobody wants to see a fight between lackeys when the main dudes stand around staring each other..

Goku/Vegeta could easily be facing off against the main guy, while the others are facing off the henchmen. With them showing both battle perspectives till Goku "henchmen" beats the big bads henchmen and we focus on the more legitimate and serious parts of the arcs big fight. It's not that complicated

[Ki Breaker]

Problem with that is it's no fun watching Goku and Vegeta wipe out henchmen with no effort. What ever happened to letting the weaker characters fight them?

If that happens when Goku and Vegeta are around, which they are all the time nowadays, then aren't the weaker characters acting as their henchmen, ain't nobody wants to see a fight between lackeys when the main dudes stand around staring each other..

Goku/Vegeta could easily be facing off against the main guy, while the others are facing off the henchmen. With them showing both battle perspectives till Goku "henchmen" beats the big bads henchmen and we focus on the more legitimate and serious parts of the arcs big fight. It's not that complicated

It kinda is, Because there is no reason for goku's henchmen to be facing other henchmen when goku gives no shits about who he is fighting, if there are warriors who want to fight, he will clean house himself if he has got the chance..
It's not like outside the tournament Goku doesn't have access to senzu either so stamina isn't a problem..

Most of the times others doing something in these situations will feel forced..