jeffbr92 wrote:Sure it has improved from what was GT: a Goku show.
Nah, it's no better.
Super is the Goku and Vegeta show. Sure, GT was Goku and Pan, with Gill and sometimes Trunks, but the thing is, GT actually did something quite clever with the side-characters; there are so many of them, it's hard to fit all of them into a given space without having really long episodes, or terrible pacing, so the side characters generally would appear for brief guest spots to get their time in the limelight. This can be quite an effective approach; Piccolo's death didn't have much build-up, but it strikes you suddenly, as death often does in reality, so you get a real pang from it. So, Piccolo's time in the limelight ends up really kicking you in the face. And on a similar subject, Mr. Satan's near-retirement at the tournament was quite touching. Granted, it was a bit of a forgettable episode in terms of plot, but the characterisation was solid, and it generally felt like just a decent breather/filler episode between arcs, with some emotional weight from Mr. Satan's grief at Boo's nonexistence. It also had a pretty strong familial vibe to it, which I would argue ties into the Super #17 arc's crux of #17 and #18 having to face off, and that familial connection permanently getting severed, with #17's death. I think it's fairly obvious quite a lot of thought went into plotting this out.
In Super, Boo has been teased, then snubbed twice, and really in general, they've shoved a lot of characters in, but poorly-written them, and the end result is just not any good IMO(For example: Roshi and Tenshinhan's recruitment into the TOP, and the Gohan and Videl filler concerning the Great Saiyaman movie).
It's as you say, the side-characters in Super have been done a great disservice.
GT didn't try to do much with the side-characters, but it did okay with what it had, and its characterisations were fine. Super shoved as many characters in as it could, characterised a ton of them very poorly(Hell, even Goku has been pretty out of character for a lot of Super), and basically just overall failed at the thing Dragon Ball has always survived on, in my view -- characterisation.
In my view, Super only really survives on hype and action, which to me is just the icing on the cake, with the actual cake being characters, comedy, decent storylines, etc. Super is basically all icing, so it just leaves me sickened, with no desire to have any more.
The way I see it, GT spent a lot of time putting its plots together, then put whatever characters made sense into it, which ended up meaning the main 3 or 4 characters got most of the focus, while everyone else generally just showed up every now and then for their big moment.
Meanwhile, Super basically just tries to throw as many characters into its arcs as possible, then they figure out how to make that a story afterward. This means there has to be a lot of contrivances to get the story to the place it needs to be in for any of this to make sense, and there's no real time for the characters to get any big moments, so in the end, the problem of just a few characters getting the focus, and the rest getting sidelined just happens all over again. I think this approach to writing could work, but they just haven't spent the time necessary to get it to work.
Still, Super does end up having more characters used, and I can see why many would prefer that to GT's approach. So... As always, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I apologise if I am hurting anyone's feelings; I'm just saying what I feel, and since it seems to be inverse to what many others feel, I imagine it may raise some interesting and enjoyable discussion points, so... That's what I'm hoping for. If that's not what's happening, just go ahead and ignore my bitter ranting. You'll probably be a lot happier for it.
jeffbr92 wrote:Some might even include Boo, Tenshinhan, Piccolo or even Chaozu (feel free to do that)
My favourite character in the franchise is Piccolo, and my favourite Z antagonist is Boo. I liked the couple of moments Piccolo has had, and I do love that he's Gohan's mentor again -- that tracks very nicely with the character progressions they're going for, but Piccolo and Gohan aren't really doing enough together, they just go "oh hey these two are together doing stuff again", then aside from having those nice slice of life moments with Piccolo at Gohan's house, we don't see much of him at all, then suddenly with this arc, we get a sudden "oh gohan's training is finished btw".
And Boo has basically become the puncline to a joke no one outside of Toei seems to get. To me, it seems the problem with Boo is that he's so over-powered, Toei has no idea what to do with him, and they don't realise this until the last minute, so they just do the "oh he's asleep again" stopgap measure. Highly frustrating IMO.
GT didn't do much with Piccolo or Boo, but when they got their time in the spotlight, it was well-used; Piccolo's death is one of the most powerful moments in GT, and Boo's fusion with Oob, and its effects on the tournament episode were really nice payoffs to the whole Oob/Boo situation, and allowed Mr. Satan to get a fairly sweet character moment in the tournament.
jeffbr92 wrote:GI hated that the show ended without even trying to make them look a bit older as the time had passed [...] But this is not only about aesthetics, let's talk about how their characters were poorly used, often brought to the sidelines by other characters saying they were just kids to do anything, though they relied on them in the past to defeat a genocidal monster, hypocrisy much? No to mention their whole subplot taking care of a Island was offscreen.
Honestly, I would love to see an episode or two just showing Goten and Trunks goofing off on the island.
But, aside from that, yeah, pawning them off onto the island was just dumb.
Since they trusted them to defeat Super Boo, and there's no real danger in the TOP that doesn't apply to those outside the tournament, why not just kick Roshi or Tenshinhan out of the tournament(Then have one of them take care of #17's island), and bring Goten and Trunks in instead of Freeza? It would make a ton more sense.
jeffbr92 wrote:Well, people might say: "oh but who cares about Yamcha", "he just serves to be a meme", "he's useless" opinions only, as there are people who would enjoy if he had better moments in the show than just being used a "funny" gag.
Yeah, that all comes from people who've never seen the original series. And to those people, I say: You now have at least 25 extra minutes a week now that Super's over. Give the original series a look, it's a classic, and it will show you why people like Yamcha, Tenshinhan, and Roshi so much, and it will make you understand the true brilliance of Piccolo, and you'll understand the friendship between Goku, Bulma, and Kuririn, and who/what Oolong is exactly, etc.
jeffbr92 wrote:Why not have Yamcha fighting again? Improve his techniques? Overcome his fears? Instead they prefered to reinforce the point of the fanbase seeing him just like a joke, a meme, a character that never should been taken seriously and that's sad.
Yep. Unfortunately, it looks like Toei have basically given in to Yamcha's meme status, and... Yeah, that's sad. Yamcha can be funny(He was
hilarious in the first arc of DB), but the way he's been handled in Super is just character assassination. Hell, his entire attitude about "Oh hey they're going to bring me into the TOP. I should wait around for an invite" and such felt, to me, pretty damn out of character, and this hugely annoyed me. Really, I felt like someone at Toei just realised suddenly "Oh wait, what about Yamcha?", to which the reply was "Oh right... Uhh... Well, just make a stupid joke, and have them just not invite or acknowledge him at all." ...
IMO, Super's handling of the characters is just terrible, and it's yet another reason I just can't stand the show.
...
Anyway, people are probably getting a little tired of my constant slamming of Super, so unless anyone asks me to elaborate, I won't go any further with that in this thread, but I thought I'd at least offer my two cents to this discussion. I think I've offered some interesting points, but who knows, maybe this just comes off as a kinda boring, bitter rant. Oh well.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.
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She/Her 
