Anyone else find there’s been a distinct lack of tension in the ToP?

[WittyUsername]

Okay so as anyone who’s seen the latest episode knows [spoiler]U11 is down to only Jiren now, and from the looks of next week’s episode, Vegeta will more or less be back at full power, which means that there were virtually no consequences to his “sacrifice” in episode 126. I’m going to be honest here, Toppo as a character was wasted, despite having been hyped up as the second most important new character introduced in this arc.The whole thing about him being on the level,of a GoD was obviously done solely to show just how strong Jiren is. Regardless of how powerful Jiren is, I’m really finding it hard to worry for U7’s chances of victory if they not only have the superior numbers, but also have all their best fighters remaining at full power.[/spoiler]

As a whole, this tournament really feels like it’s been skewing too heavily in Universe 7’s favor. Not only have they eliminated more fighters than all the other universes combined, but they’ve also consistently been the universe with the greatest number of fighters, following Frost’s elimination. I’m not saying that the protagonists of the series should be the worst performing team in the tournament, but this idea of them being underdogs in the ToP has pretty much been completely meaningless. They’ve been the MVP’s for this whole thing, and even though on paper, I suppose U11 has the advantage, most of their fighters didn’t actually accomplish anything the entire time. Hell, 70% of them were eliminated before the halfway point!

[Kataphrut]

That has been the problem for ages and ages. I remember being annoyed when the gap between U6 and U7 started widening, I liked how they were even in numbers up until the first three losses. But it only got more egregious from then.

What's especially bad is that they build up all these decent threats and don't pay them off because they're apparently petrified of giving someone from U7 a legitimate loss because it would ruin the roll of fanservice the entire arc has been built around. So we have half our current losses to cheap sneak attacks (Krillin, Tien, Piccolo), the other half to noble heroic sacrifices (Roshi, 18, Gohan) and several built up opponents leaving the ring with 0 meaningful wins to their name (Ribrianne, Kefla, Anilaza, Dyspo, Toppo, need I go on). If it wasn't for Jiren's elimination of Hit (I generally count U6 characters as protagonists with the exceptions of Frost and Kefla), he'd be on that list as well.

This final phase has been especially bad about it. 122 gave me hope that we'd see a reversal of fortune for U7 but then 123 ruined it with the double-barrelled combo of Jiren's no-sell game taking a step up in ridiculousness and Vegeta's awful transformation moment, leaving nobody to root for since the plot was bending over backwards to pad things out. 125 brought it back with Toppo slaughtering Freeza, putting 17 on the back foot and ending with a preview for an episode titled "Vegeta's Sacrifice". Cut to 126, and somehow Toppo is gone, and Vegeta, Freeza and 17 are all still in the ring, apparently no worse for wear.

[MKCSTEALTH]

Honestly, the idea of the ToP is fantastic. But the fact it's taking place before Goku meets Uub immediately killed any sense of dread or tension. It's had a lot of cool moments, but since we know where we are ultimately going to wind up, I've just been waiting to see how U7 wins and what "the wish" winds up being

[JazzMazz]

Yes and I think the reason for this is how little cohesion there is between episodes. For example, last episode was super tense and had a fantastic atmosphere to it, however, that wasn't at all followed up in this episode, which despite even beginning the episode with stuff from last week, failed to capture the same tone and sense of desperation as last episode. That's not even mentioning the in cohesion in the writing(the aura of destruction thing from 125 that suddenly just disappeared in 126).

[ulitmax999]

Because people are jacking off to U7 curb stomping

U7 this, U7 that

Vegeta spent all stamina? Next episode he will be full stamina again.

YAWWWWNNNN

Wondering if Jiren can even eliminate 17. :V

[buutenks]

Okay so as anyone who’s seen the latest episode knows [spoiler]U11 is down to only Jiren now, and from the looks of next week’s episode, Vegeta will more or less be back at full power, which means that there were virtually no consequences to his “sacrifice” in episode 126. I’m going to be honest here, Toppo as a character was wasted, despite having been hyped up as the second most important new character introduced in this arc.The whole thing about him being on the level,of a GoD was obviously done solely to show just how strong Jiren is. Regardless of how powerful Jiren is, I’m really finding it hard to worry for U7’s chances of victory if they not only have the superior numbers, but also have all their best fighters remaining at full power.[/spoiler]

Really? Lol, 4 times 0 power is still 0 power. Goku, Vegeta, Freeza n 17 are ants compared to Jiren. Jiren is the tension. Only UI Goku or Vegetto compare to Jiren.

As a whole, this tournament really feels like it’s been skewing too heavily in Universe 7’s favor. Not only have they eliminated more fighters than all the other universes combined, but they’ve also consistently been the universe with the greatest number of fighters, following Frost’s elimination. I’m not saying that the protagonists of the series should be the worst performing team in the tournament, but this idea of them being underdogs in the ToP has pretty much been completely meaningless. They’ve been the MVP’s for this whole thing, and even though on paper, I suppose U11 has the advantage, most of their fighters didn’t actually accomplish anything the entire time. Hell, 70% of them were eliminated before the halfway point!

U7 has a low mortal level, not a low BP. u7 are not the underdogs.

ToP is basically u11vs u7 , if anyone expected more they clearly set themselves up for disappointment.

[MainJPW]

ToP is basically u11vs u7 , if anyone expected more they clearly set themselves up for disappointment.

Yeah, I'm...one of them. I should've known better.

[GamerSkull]

Yeah, this entire arc just feels like fanservice.

There's barely any story and it's just about non-stop fighting... which I guess is fine.

But the biggest thing that makes me feel like there is no tension is that Gohan seems to be the only one that is somewhat remorseful for what's happening (like when he saw that family locket).

The other U7 characters also seem to care for their own universe but since there is such a huge focus on Goku and Vegeta, I'm constantly trying to see how they feel about the situation. Goku doesn't seem to feel anything regarding it and Vegeta has only had a few lines relating to Cabba and that's it.

I want more of the MAIN CHARACTERS to reflect on the seriousness of what's going on and what winning AND losing means... but I guess DB has never really been that deep.

It would have been cool to see more characters realize that what they are doing is contributing to a universe of people being erased... and that they are being forced to take part in such a thing.

[TheShadowEmperor8055]

It has been noted many times already that the ToP lacks tension, but I'm assuming you didn't know that.

Artificial tension and what-have-you. Honestly, I really think Toei could have made it a have a lot more palpable tension if they had intended to like the Future Trunks arc.

[Ballistictiger]

Super never had tension. They ruined it the moment it was set between end of Buu arc and the end of Z. None of the artificial tension works when you know what's going to happen, everything ending up fine.

[dbs fanboy]

Yes and I think the reason for this is how little cohesion there is between episodes. For example, last episode was super tense and had a fantastic atmosphere to it, however, that wasn't at all followed up in this episode, which despite even beginning the episode with stuff from last week, failed to capture the same tone and sense of desperation as last episode. That's not even mentioning the in cohesion in the writing(the aura of destruction thing from 125 that suddenly just disappeared in 126).

Pretty much this, there are a lot of episode where i can actually feel the tension on the fights, and then we have episodes like this one or 119 or 106 and 101.

[Muffin Man]

U7 has a low mortal level, not a low BP. u7 are not the underdogs.

ToP is basically u11vs u7 , if anyone expected more they clearly set themselves up for disappointment.

The thing is...I feel like the whole point of introducing the multiverse concept in BoG was to make the heroes into underdogs again. Beerus was acting like there was a ton of fighters in all the universes who dwarfed Goku in power. This set the stage for a return to a situation like at the beginning of DBZ, where Goku enters a new playing field where he is suddenly severely outmatched by even mere grunts like Radditz.

Instead of immediately having Goku face the most powerful beings of all twelves universes, they should have built up to it by having him struggle against the weaklings first, and then escalate from there. That would have added actual tension and a sense of progression to the story, like DB and DBZ had.

[SupremeKai25]

Actually, only the Future Trunks arc had 'real' tension, because we didn't know what had happened to the Future timeline by the End of Z, so there was real tension, real fear and terror for the world's well-being; and in the end, the Future timeline got infested by Zamasu and utterly erased by Zen-Oh. So, since the Future Trunks arc wasn't limited by the End of Z (since it took place in a completely different timeline), there was much more room to build real tension and the outcome wasn't clear.

But with all other Super arcs, there is significantly less tension. It's obvious that Universe 7 will either win the Tournament of Power or lose but be brought back by Universe 11. Otherwise, the End of Z wouldn't make sense.

[Raphael_Z]

Expecting tension in a midquel or prequel is silly. A17 and Frieza are the only 2 that COULD potentially die (or be erased) but everyone else is going to be 100% fine because of EoZ.

And yes, I agree that the Goku Black Saga was the only one with real tension because Trunks didn't have any safety net to ensure his survival but we all knew Vegeta and Goku would make it.

[WittyUsername]

Really? Lol, 4 times 0 power is still 0 power. Goku, Vegeta, Freeza n 17 are ants compared to Jiren. Jiren is the tension. Only UI Goku or Vegetto compare to Jiren.

The thing is, Jiren hasn’t really been doing a whole lot in this tournament. Outside of eliminating Hit, he’s accomplished nothing of real significance. He’s certainly not fodder or anything, but he hasn’t really been actively shown to be an intimidating presence who absolutely can’t be overcome.

U7 has a low mortal level, not a low BP. u7 are not the underdogs.

ToP is basically u11vs u7 , if anyone expected more they clearly set themselves up for disappointment.

Even as far as U11 is concerned, they haven’t been shown to be a very impressive threat apart from Jiren. Also, the thing about U7 having a low mortal level seems like it was established because they wanted to build up this idea that U7 were underdogs. Isn’t that the same reason why U11 has been established as having the highest mortal level out of any of the universes in the tournament?

[Lord Beerus]

I can understand the complaints.

I have feeling this arc was written under the pretense of this being the last opportunity for the supporting cast to have a major moment in battle, so the mindset was most likely "Why not?". I mean, if Dragon Ball has any story set after EOZ, all of the characters we see in the main cast of the Universal Survival arc will either conveniently disappear again (#17 and Freeza), won't be strong enough to handle late major threats (Tien and Piccolo), given up martial arts (#18 and Gohan) or become old and/or settled down (Krillin and Roshi).

Give the time frame of when Universal Survival arc take place automatically put a cup at how much tension you create with the story, because we already know here this is going to lead to. You could get away with it with Future Trunks and his arc, because what was at stake for him had no bearing on the circumstances of the main cast.

[Kataphrut]

I feel like there was tension back when the other universes were still in, but it evaporated now that we're down to just the two we knew had to make it to the end.

If Future Trunks and his timeline's safety were the source of tension in the last arc, then the other universes were that for this arc. Much like him, they're not protected by the End of Z, so there is some legitimate mystery as to whether or not they'll survive. The trouble with that is, as always, the execution. Only U6 were properly developed in a way to make them sympathetic (I feel like U11 had shades of it at the start, but that all went down the drain when Jiren started getting more prominent), 2 went back and forth between annoying and endearing, 4 were outright hostile, and 9, 10 and 3 were sort of sympathetic, but also set up to fail from the start.

It certainly doesn't feel like we're rooting for the underdogs here. I said back during the stretch of episodes focusing on the downfall of Universe 6 (110-118 aka the best damn stretch of episodes in the whole series) that they felt like actual protagonists, facing increasing adversity and powering through as the odds got higher. Meanwhile, it's hard not to look at Universe 7's overwhelming string of victories and feel like we're rooting for the baddies. Now it's down to the last fighters and the only question left is which will break first: Universe 7's plot armour, or Jiren's fists.