TKA wrote:Black isn't even a comparison. His manga version is so much better. That moment where he stabs Gowasu in the belly and says he's already killed him twice was the character's best moment, period. Even the way he's drawn is better than the anime's for me, even with just the thicker outlines around his eyes. Also, Manga Black getting his ass kicked added vulnerability to the character, which in turn makes him more believable.
I'm not personally partial to saying that one version of Goku Black's personality is better than the other, so much as the writers chose to take the character in two different directions. The anime staff wanted Black to be a flamboyant, unshakable force, while Toyotaro took the route of making him literally Zamasu in a different body along with everything that entails. While both have their various strengths and drawbacks as characters, I have to admit that I liked the angle of wholesale reflecting Zamasu's personality in Goku Black. Zamasu, to me, was an impetuous manchild with too much power that got too big for his britches. Seeing Black act all high and mighty when he has the upperhand, then lashing out like a child when he gets humbled felt entirely in character for who he was supposed to be.
I totally get where people are coming from when they say they loved the anime's portrayal of the character - he certainly was very entertaining in his own right. That said, the anime version of Goku Black often felt like a completely separate character from Zamasu, which is odd considering that they are supposed to be the same person. It definitely made Black feel like a unique individual, but the disconnect between he and Zamasu was a little jarring, especially since Black had a much stronger and more charismatic personality when compared to his counterpart. Strange that Zamasu gained so much charisma from simply body hopping.
Charisma aside, I enjoyed seeing the manga version of Black acting like something of a bratty child treating his new body as a shiny new plaything and getting pissy when the "filthy mortals" start raining on his power trip. I thought the brief falling-out he and Zamasu had when they started losing to Goku and Vegeta in the second act was great. It was the moment when the smug bullies realized that they might not be hot shit after all and they didn't like it. It revealed their immature mindset and proved that they were really no better than the mortals they despised. It all felt very
"Zamasu".
Exline wrote:Yeah I don’t really understand how people enjoy the anime villains being way too overpowered only to finish them off with an insane asspull. (Kaioken, Trunks Spirt Sword?)
That vulnerability that TKA and the others state are what really sell villains. Goku and Piccolo, Goku and Vegeta, Goku and Cell, Piccolo and 17, some of the greatest fights where both the protagonist and antagonist are near the same level and give each other an intense fight where you don’t really know who the victor is and it all comes down to whoever comes up with the better strategy to gain the upper hand.
I can’t really enjoy a fight when it’s easily so one sided. And at some points, where the fight is extremely confusing to understand because of the impossible to understand power scaling.
This is part of the reason I couldn't take any of the later fights of the Future Trunks arc seriously or invest in what was going on. The prime example is Vegeta's last fight with Black. It starts out great: Vegeta returns from a training stint and pummels Black into the ground, all the while schooling him on his mistake of underestimating mortals/Saiyans and showing him that he was just a pathetic pretender that could never utilize the full potential of a body that wasn't his. Then Black just goes, "Oh, that's neat. I'm gonna get stronger now." Then he just
does and pulls a scythe out of nowhere that can tear open rifts in space-time filled with pink smoke clones and starts dominating Vegeta and Goku again. Wait,
what?!
The first thing that took me out of the moment was Black's miraculous ability to just not be hurt by anything. Zamasu is supposed to be the immortal one, but once again, Black takes a savage beating and just shrugs it off like it never even happened. It's an issue that bothered me all throughout the arc, but in this moment where he is completely outmatched and soundly beaten, framed with the idea of him never being able to bring out that body's potential, it's especially egregious. Disregarding the fact that this ability is never explained or justified in the plot, just what am I supposed to take away from this? I guess Vegeta was just full of shit and Black has even more potential in that body than its original owner did? What was the point of this scene beyond letting Vegeta look cool for a moment? When Vegeta gives this speech in the manga, it actually meant something since Black didn't just no-sell the beating he just took and would've actually lost to Vegeta were it not for Zamasu's intervention. Black didn't have a handle on Goku's body and Vegeta proved it.
On top of the unclear and seemingly contradictory message of the fight, what in the world were these new powers that Black spontaneously developed? Lengthening his ki sword and firing smaller blades out of it like when he fought Goku previously, I can understand. It's a logical extension of what Zamasu has been capable of up until them. Even the scythe itself makes sense on its own own as a ki weapon, but the time-space rending abilities and smoke clones come out of nowhere and don't correspond to anything either Zamasu or Black were capable of. If he can do that just by getting angry, how am I supposed to take this guy seriously? Black can take infinite amounts of damage and get up like nothing happened, he can get stronger on a whim while fighting and now he can tear open holes in reality and create clones of himself? Goku Black doesn't follow any rules. After he pulled out the scythe, he could have sprouted wings and a tail and started shooting ki dragons out of his eyes and I wouldn't have batted an eye.When your villain can effectively just do whatever at any time, it becomes impossible to feel invested.
If you're in it purely for the spectacle (as the majority of the fandom seems to be), then the anime has it in spades. A flamboyant invincible villain that gets stronger on a whim and has a crazy ki scythe that can tear holes in the sky? That sounds extremely cool and can makes for a wild visual spectacle. However, it just doesn't carry any weight behind it when it doesn't follow any internal logic and the characters don't have any palpable limitations. It can make your villain feel imposing at first, but as things just keep escalating to ever more ridiculous degrees without any end in sight or any logical sense of progression, people will start to become apathetic to the stakes at hand and lose all sense of tension. Looking cool is great and the anime does all kinds of cool things, but your villains need to have something to realistically ground them in the world they're a part of in order to be believable. Goku Black was entertaining in the anime, but after a while I just couldn't continue caring about the battles he was a part of because nothing he did made any sense.
The post-Super fandom has ruined my love for Dragon Ball.
