Why do fans of One Piece and Naruto criticize Dragon Ball a lot?

[Michsi]

Because everything has to be a competition of some sort, I suppose. You see a hint of it even here from time to time, whenever someone discuses sales or ratings. The reasons why *you* prefer one show over the other must also be why it is objectively better than the others. DB being the only other show that is in their league in terms of popularity makes some want to target it especially because they want to express how popularity isn't a factor in deciding what is good and what isn't. This goes both ways btw ; DB fans pick on other shows as well and I've seen plenty of Naruto and OP fans pick on each other. Same for other shows. It's a thing that happens in fandoms.

[sintzu]

Because everything has to be a competition of some sort, I suppose.

Some people for some reason think they can only like one thing. You see it with marvel and dc, samsung and apple, playstation and xbox, etc. I don't know why they'd limit themselves to one thing when they can like multiple things.

[Bullza]

Probably because they're annoyed that Dragon Ball isn't bogged down with boring back stories, forced romances, overly sappy drivel, constant childish gags and gimmicks, shoe horned in female characters all with big boobs and villains being beaten after having a sentimental heart to heart conversation.

This seems just as reductive as the very sentiments being expressed "against" Dragon Ball.

It's not a worthwhile discussion tactic in either direction, and is not something we'll entertain here. There are no "sides" necessary here, and if you're going to have a legitimate "take" on something, let's hear that actual "take".

That actually was my take. I am apart of this whole One Piece and Naruto fandom and I've seen all those complaints made about Dragon Ball many times whenever there's any comparisons. The complaints being

1. The characters have no back stories and their history is not explained. Meanwhile those series will get criticised for having too many backstory and them being so long that it hurts the pacing.

2. There's no romantic development and characters are just thrown together like Goku and Chi Chi for the sake of the plot. Meanwhile those series focus on it more and then get more criticism for it when certain characters do or don't get matched up.

3. They say there's no emotional impact because characters keep coming back. Others will complain that not enough characters are killed off at all and they harp on too much about friendship and bonds.

4. They say certain characters don't have any impact because they show up and leave shortly afterwards, never to be seen again and with no unique abilities from anyone else. Yet in One Piece every character seems to have some repetitive gimmick to stand out.

5. There's not enough female characters in the show. Yet female characters in most Shonen are usually terrible, solely designed to look physically flawless one after the one.

6. Most of the villians don't get any development, they are evil upon introduction and stay that way until they die with a few exceptions like Vegeta. Meanwhile one of the most common complaints about Naruto is that there's always that scene where Naruto talks to the villain and they change their ways, over and over again. The Talk No Jutsu.

Dragon Ball might be a Shonen but it's nothing like all these other popular and cliche Shonens and these people don't like that. They don't like that it isn't as emotional, that there aren't enough female characters, that there aren't people to "ship". DBZ is just a simple show with a bunch of punch jockeys to these people.

[Kunzait_83]

6. Most of the villians don't get any development, they are evil upon introduction and stay that way until they die with a few exceptions like Vegeta.

This is about as categorically untrue as it gets. Dragon Ball if anything is especially notable for the sheer number of major villains who end up becoming friends and allies of Goku over time and outright joining the main cast of protagonists. Goku and his sons (and Trunks) aside, virtually almost the ENTIRE roster of Z Warriors were all across the board either outright major villains, or at least antagonists.

Yamucha and Kuririn weren't villains per se (well Yamucha maybe SORTA was), but they were both originally introduced as antagonists to Goku. Meanwhile Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta, #18 (and as of Super, #17), and Majin Boo... all major, marquee series villains who end up reforming. The most major/notable villains who DON'T ever end up reforming are the various Red Ribbon Army officers, Tao Pai Pai, Dr. Gero, Freeza, and Cell.

And Freeza, depending on what Super does with him later on, may well POSSIBLY (long shot though it is) head down that road at some point: Super's now left that door open by at least a hairline crack.

Funny thing also: all of the various villains who ended up reforming represent at least ONE of the various villainous factions across the series: Tenshinhan (and Chaozu for that matter) defected from the Crane School of assassins (also represented by Tao Pai Pai earlier), Piccolo from the Mazoku/demons, Vegeta from Freeza's Empire, #17 and #18 from (a splinter-faction/offshoot of) the Red Ribbon Army, and Majin Boo from Babidi's crew.

From virtually EVERY major villainous group that Goku encounters spanning across the ENTIRE series, he manages to pick up AT LEAST one new friend/comrade from sooner or later down the line.

[ABED]

6. Most of the villians don't get any development, they are evil upon introduction and stay that way until they die with a few exceptions like Vegeta.

This is about as categorically untrue as it gets. Dragon Ball if anything is especially notable for the sheer number of major villains who end up becoming friends and allies of Goku over time and outright joining the main cast of protagonists. Goku and his sons (and Trunks) aside, virtually almost the ENTIRE roster of Z Warriors were all across the board either outright major villains, or at least antagonists.

Yamucha and Kuririn weren't villains per se (well Yamucha maybe SORTA was), but they were both originally introduced as antagonists to Goku. Meanwhile Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta, #18 (and as of Super, #17), and Majin Boo... all major, marquee series villains who end up reforming. The most major/notable villains who DON'T ever end up reforming are the various Red Ribbon Army officers, Tao Pai Pai, Dr. Gero, Freeza and Cell.

And Freeza, depending on what Super does with him later on, may well POSSIBLY (long shot though it is) head down that road at some point: Super's now left that door open by at least a hairline crack.

Funny thing also: all of the various villains who ended up reforming represent at least ONE of the various villainous factions across the series: Tenshinhan (and Chaozu for that matter) defected from the Crane School of assassins (also represented by Tao Pai Pai earlier), Piccolo from the Mazoku/demons, Vegeta from Freeza's Empire, #17 and #18 from (a splinter-faction/offshoot of) the Red Ribbon Army, and Majin Boo from Babidi's crew.

From virtually EVERY major villainous group that Goku encounters spanning across the ENTIRE series, he manages to pick up AT LEAST one new friend/comrade from sooner or later down the line.

THis is true so much so that even Kuririn points it out during his speech to get everyone on board with fighting the cyborgs.

[Kunzait_83]

THis is true so much so that even Kuririn points it out during his speech to get everyone on board with fighting the cyborgs.

Yep. That's a pretty major moment in the Cell arc (and in the series in general) I'd say.

Also, the overwhelming majority of those former villains who end up turning go through a whole TON of character development in order to get there. Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta, and even Boo to an extent... all of them go through these whole drawn out, in-depth character arcs (Piccolo's and Vegeta's spanning multiple story arcs of the series) that get them from point A of villainy to point B of heroism. #18's trajectory is probably the least fleshed out among them, but even she gets at least a LITTLE bit.

[Bullza]

This is about as categorically untrue as it gets.

It is but Naruto fans in particular see it in a different perspective. The villains in that series can be introduced as villains, then they will have these flashbacks where they were actually good people and it'll show how they became villains, then in the present they'll later become good people once again to come full circle.

As was done with Gaara, Obito, Nagato, Kabuto and so on.

It's done with other villains in other series too. So then they look at Dragon Ball and they see someone like Frieza, Cell and Buu and will criticise them for being simple because they were introduced as villains, died as villains and that was it.

No flashbacks and no sob stories of how they had it rough as children.

[VegettoEX]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: seems to me the root of the issue is these theoretical Naruto boogeyman fans experiencing the entire story of THAT series, while only ever watching Dragon Ball Z.

But again, there don't need to be "sides". It's ridiculous to be so reductive about another series. There's no competition here. No-one's taking anything away from anyone.

[Kunzait_83]

It is but Naruto fans in particular see it in a different perspective. The villains in that series can be introduced as villains, then they will have these flashbacks where they were actually good people and it'll show how they became villains, then in the present they'll later become good people once again to come full circle.

As was done with Gaara, Obito, Nagato, Kabuto and so on.

It's done with other villains in other series too. So then they look at Dragon Ball and they see someone like Frieza, Cell and Buu and will criticise them for being simple because they were introduced as villains, died as villains and that was it.

No flashbacks and no sob stories of how they had it rough as children.

Not for nothing but when it comes to narrative storytelling, as is the case with ANY form of art, there is no (or at least VERY rarely) set in stone "correct" way of doing things. Can having a villain with a sympathetic backstory make for more compelling drama? Of course, sure: but not ALL THE TIME like clockwork. Done poorly (as I would personally argue it often is with most post-DB Shonen series like One Piece and such) and this can come across as just a hackneyed and lazy an attempt at injecting "depth" into things.

You can write the most uncompelling, flat, dull, and otherwise two-dimensional villain imaginable, and it doesn't matter how much in the way of "Boo hoo, my father hit me" character beats you tack onto their back history: not only is that not going to help matters much in terms of their being an already-boring character, its probably going to come across as a transparently hacky and obvious attempt at yanking on the audience's heartstrings for cheap pathos. Hell, its probably one of the single most common (and justified) criticisms of most fanfiction out there (not to dredge up an example that's often appropriated as an overused buzzword into this, but I think its warranted here).

Meanwhile, some of the all time greatest literary villains in all of the great canon works of classic literature and theater have in many cases been totally unrepentant pieces of shit, with little to nothing in the way of sympathy attempted for them: with Shakespeare alone, you have everyone from Iago to Lady Macbeth to Tybalt, all of whom are the personification of malice, selfishness, and hatred, with almost NOTHING in the realm of redeeming characteristics. And yet, they remain some of the greatest, most compelling and memorable villains in all the great works of fiction.

By that same token, the Bard also had villains like Claudius, who indeed have more gray-ish shades to their morals and redeeming qualities to their character: so again, its not as if these different approaches to writing villains are somehow ironclad in terms of one being any more inherently better or superior than the other. It all comes down, once again, to execution: you can craft a villain who has NO redeeming, positive, or sympathetic traits whatsoever and come up with an all time classic masterwork of characterization, and meanwhile try to write a villain with all sorts of tragedy and pathos to them, and end up with groan-worthy dreck. And vice versa.

This idea that so many Shonen fans have that giving your villain a bunch of "Boo hoo, my mom didn't hug me enough" moments inherently gives your villain (and thus your whole series) instant depth is about as two-dimensional and wrongheaded (and appropriately enough, childish) an approach towards writing as it gets.

[ABED]

Thank you, and thanks for using different examples than my go tos. My go to example for an unrepentant villain is Hans Gruber. He's just a thief with charisma, but he's iconic. Tragic backstory doesn't automatically give depth, nor does giving the villain history with the hero.

[Gon Soku]

Hi everyone, I'm new here, long time Dragonball fan from germany and after the manga ended over here I started One Piece so this feels like the perfect topic for me to start.

Personally I haven't met many One Piece fans who overly criticize Dragonball except for the pacing of the anime but One Piece is also a victim of that and the problems exist so it's perfectly fair criticism. Maybe I haven't met the "right" fans but in my little corner of the One Piece fandom Dragonball is generally well liked and appreciated maybe because over here the publisher who releasd Dragonball heavily promoted One Piece during the final DB volumes as the new big shonen so there was a huge overlap.

I like both a lot but neither is perfect, Toriyama is better at comedy, action scenes and character designs, Oda is better at emotional scenes and handles his characters better (as in keeping them relevant and not forgetting some of them).
I love the stories both came up with, Oda's is probably more planned out while Toriyama made everything up while he went along but both are perfectly fine approaches to storytelling.

[Kunzait_83]

Thank you, and thanks for using different examples than my go tos. My go to example for an unrepentant villain is Hans Gruber. He's just a thief with charisma, but he's iconic. Tragic backstory doesn't automatically give depth, nor does giving the villain history with the hero.

Iago is probably one of the single all time greatest examples of EXACTLY the pitch perfect way to craft and execute a 100% completely unsympathetic villain with no remote positive qualities whatsoever.

Apart from a simple military promotion, Iago otherwise has almost NOTHING of substance to gain personally from deceiving and betraying Othello (and numerous other characters) throughout the play other than petty joy and amusement at watching the life of someone he's jealous of go to absolute ruin. And yet, the character goes to IMMENSE lengths and masterminds an unbelievably twisted and convoluted scheme towards systematically dismantling Othello's entire existence, seemingly purely for the fun and sport of it.

If the stereotypical modern Shonen fan (of the sort that's hypothetically in question here in this thread) tried reading through or viewing a performance of Othello, they'd almost undoubtedly roll their eyes and snark on Iago as being somehow "two dimensional" and "boring" because the play never makes you understand exactly WHY Iago would do all this, nor does it try to make you understand his perspective or "get inside his head" by painting him with any sympathetic traits: he's never anything but an almost Satanic-like figure of lies, vanity, ego, and sadism.

But that would of course be missing the entire point, as its that lack of basic humanity which is EXACTLY what makes Iago so effective in the first place: that someone could be so brilliantly intelligent and charismatic and yet so disturbed, narcissistic, and sociopathic as to devote so much of their time, energy, and vast talents towards little more than the absolute destruction of a good man who did him absolutely no wrong whatsoever (other than not giving him a minor promotion he wanted) and who's demise he'll gain very little from (indeed it ends up ultimately bringing about Iago's own demise later on after)... it comes across throughout the play and throughout Iago's character less as blandly two-dimensional and more as bone-chilling and psychologically disturbing.

And its compounded all the more so by Iago's great intelligence and outwardly likable personality: on the sheer overwhelmingly well-thought-out plausibility of Iago's half-truth laden lies and his seemingly saintly demeanor, almost the whole cast of characters implicitly trusts him and find him to be the most harmless and charming presence throughout the story: and that simple charm masks an unbelievably sinister dark heart underneath. Its one of the most effective and memorable instances in any given work of fiction I can name of a villainous character who has almost little more to them than pure, naked malice and sadism that's ultimately driving them.

Since you brought up Hans Gruber ABED, I'll go to another more pulp-ishly movie villain that perfectly embodies this: Michael Myers from Halloween.

In the original Halloween, Michael Myers was initially a little boy from a peaceful suburban small town, raised by an upper middle class, happy, and normal family. One Halloween night out of the blue he just... snaps. Everything, every shred of humanity in him just up and vanished, and he commits his first murder by killing his sister. And he goes on to keep on killing, with no rhyme or reason, with no explanation, nothing to make logical sense or justify his madness.

Some of the latter sequels tried giving him a convoluted rationale based in Celtic mysticism; and even more egregiously the remake would TOTALLY re-imagine his ENTIRE backstory by making him an abused boy living with a poor, white trash, trailer park family, who through systematic abuse from his stepfather, sister, and other neighborhood boys, develops all the telltale signs of a young serial killer... before becoming one.

All of these later approaches were COMPLETELY misguided and ended up DAMAGING what made the character work so effectively and be so scary in the first place: the whole point of what made Michael Myers so frightening was that THERE WASN'T any logical reason for why he went insane. He was a normal, happy kid who had the perfect, idyllic middle American life: and one day, on a dime, and with seemingly NOTHING to initiate it, he just... LOSES IT, picks up a kitchen knife, and goes stab-happy. The lack of any reason or explanation IS EXACTLY WHAT MADE HIM SO TERRIFYING. One of the greatest sources of fear being, of course, the unknown and unexplainable.

As bad as the Celtic mythology shit was in the later sequels, the remake's approach was WAY worse: by doing away with the inherent premise of what made him scary, by attempting to "humanize" him and make him "sympathetic" to the audience, not only is he no longer scary in any way... his entire character arc is just thuddingly, almost pointlessly predictable. Whereas in the original, you're left to almost go mad wondering (and never knowing) "WHY would this kid just up and do these things? What's WRONG with him?", with the remake you're more like "Well yeah, OF COURSE he's gonna be driven insane and turn into a serial killer after all that. Who the hell wouldn't?"

Its an absolutely PERFECT example of some of the obvious pitfalls that comes with this idea that making any villain somehow sympathetic is an innately superior and more "deep" way to write a character. Its not: its just one of several different approaches one can take, the quality of the outcome depending almost entirely on the context of the story being written, as well as the skill and execution of the writer.

[ABED]

Does Oda really plan out his stories? Toriyama is a "pantser", but that's always made sense to me given the nature of his story having to be released weekly.

[Bullza]

This idea that so many Shonen fans have that giving your villain a bunch of "Boo hoo, my mom didn't hug me enough" moments inherently gives your villain (and thus your whole series) instant depth is about as two-dimensional and wrongheaded (and appropriately enough, childish) an approach towards writing as it gets.

Yeah well it's "depth", that's what they always come out with, that this is what depth is.

I don't know when this started but it seemed like it became more of a thing with Naruto. It was also a thing for Fairy Tail and a couple others but if a character has a sad back story and / or they become good in the end then that's depth.

If they don't have that then they're two dimensional. I still vividly remember on the Myanimelist forum a heated discussion between who the better villain was between Frieza and Jellal from Fairy Tail and the majority were saying the later simply because he changed over time whereas Frieza remained the same.

I don't know what it is with these people because I'm sure the same people would like The Joker but if there isn't some sympathetic reason for their villainy then thats a negative.

[jjgp1112]

There's too much overlap between the One Piece and DBZ fanbases for me to think there's any real friction or problem there. Personally, I'll always prefer Dragon Ball from a sentimental standpoint but find One Piece to be a much more engaging story with stronger characterization.

[Chuquita]

I really enjoy One Piece's world; all the wildly different islands. Satisfies the road trip itch I got with Super.

Re: villain motivations

I think some people want that villain backstory because they don't want to believe a real person could be that cruel and receiving a reason for it makes it more bearable somehow. Not that this applies to everyone.

[Dr. Casey]

Does Oda really plan out his stories? Toriyama is a "pantser", but that's always made sense to me given the nature of his story having to be released weekly.

Oda's definitely a planner. Detailed, micro-level world building is the kind of storytelling that he finds fun (as opposed to Toriyama's more macro approach where he zooms in on a smaller group of characters), and the story is full of clever foreshadowing to things that happen years, sometimes even decades down the road.

The two aren't the polar opposites that they're sometimes depicted as, though. Oda's omniscience is overstated by some people; originally he intended One Piece to only last five years, so he plainly didn't have everything outlined from the beginning (that would have seen One Piece ending in 2002, as opposed to the 2023~2026 range where it will likely wrap up in actuality), and there's a few plot holes and retcons here and there, most commonly during the early story arcs. As for Toriyama, old Shonen Jump interviews from when the series was still being written show a surprising amount of foresight at times. Toriyama is sometimes flattened by the fandom as being a complete dope with the depth of a Dr. Slump character, but he did often have some kind of vision for where the story would go in the short term and the medium term, even if that vision was much less detailed and filled with many more gaps than Oda's. I'd say that Toriyama is a pantser moreso than a planner, but he does have stronger elements of the latter than he's stereotyped as having.

[ABED]

As for Toriyama, old Shonen Jump interviews from when the series was still being written show a surprising amount of foresight at times.

Can you recall any off the top of your head? Most of the time he doesn't foreshadow, he simply left himself openings by not giving everything up front. He has the ability to make things connect in pretty organic ways.

[Theophrastus]

Does Oda really plan out his stories? Toriyama is a "pantser", but that's always made sense to me given the nature of his story having to be released weekly.

There are definitely story beats and character elements that he decides on way in advance, but in real terms I think he just kind of sets up a basic skeleton for an arc and then fills in the details as he's actually working on the chapters week-to-week. Like there are definite bits where it's like "Ah, so THAT'S why/how <character> said/did/is <thing>", but then there are also some points where it's quite obvious that Oda got to the point where he originally intended to conclude an arc and then decided to introduce a new complication to give him an excuse to keep it going for a while longer.

[sintzu]

As for Toriyama, old Shonen Jump interviews from when the series was still being written show a surprising amount of foresight at times.

Can you recall any off the top of your head? Most of the time he doesn't foreshadow, he simply left himself openings by not giving everything up front. He has the ability to make things connect in pretty organic ways.

I wouldn't call it foreshadowing but generally speaking while watching the original story from start to finish I get the vibe that most of it could've been planned out despite that not being the case which goes to show how good of a writer he was back then.