"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[PFM18]

In fact, this whole plot point just seems to be "let's make Goku look dumb in order to make Roshi look good."

Yeah, that seemed to be the point to me too. Goku looks like a moron where he is on the opposite end of the sequence during the Cell Arc where he realized that using ki to power up your muscles isn't an effective way to fight, and then Roshi comes in and acts as though he wasn't surpassed in knowledge and skill forever ago. Goku's stupidity is used to put over Roshi in a very strange way. Goku had "powered up with pure power like the Saiyan named Kale" but what does that even mean? There was never any reference to speed so it isn't akin to what happened to the Cell arc. We get a scene where Goku uses essentially something that is "like Kaioken but not Kaioken", which makes no damn sense. Why not just have him use Kaioken?

[emperior]

This tournament feels so “tiny” in the manga. There’s no tension whatsoever, the stakes aren’t felt and there’s no scale in the fights. The Gods other than Beerus and Whish didn’t even comment about Roshi’s UI-like power or Goku’s Ultra Instinct.
So much for the ultimate power.

[ekrolo2]

I’m guessing in the manga version he doesn’t grow a bang almost like treating it as a “Base stated technique” rather where the anime has him grow a bang to show he has transformed.

That's what Ultimate is supposed to be: Base with all your power available without transforming. The whole idea behind it is to render transformations pointless. The anime fucked up by turning it into one.

Well it is supposed to "be a state that brings you past your limits without changing form" and that is essentially what the anime did. He would turn that "state" on and off, but he wouldn't actually change form he'd still be the same looking Gohan but just a cue in his hair style to let you know what is going on.

His hair shouldn't change, his eyes should, that's the give away and Gohan flipping it on and off like Goku & Vegeta do helps make the impression it's supposed to be a transformation. Which doesn't even make sense as Ultimate gives you access to all your power in your regular state, why he needs to flip it on and off like it'll cost him stamina boggles my mind.

[HeroR]

I don’t care about Gohan being that strong to be honest. It may be bullshit for some for Gohan to be this strong or for Kefla to be this weak, but it doesn’t go against anything established before hand, and we don’t know how strong Kefla is. Gohan is surely around Blue level in both the anime and manga, and I like this as it gives Gohan some well needed action and respect.

What shouldn’t be accepted is everything else in this awful chapter. The way Goku and Roshi are portrayed is downright offensive to the fans of Toriyama’s original work. This is probably the worst thing I have ever seen in something Dragon Ball related in the last years. I wouldn’t expect such a badly written narrative to be written even by Toei’s worst writer, as they have respect for the original work and aren’t going to completely alter Goku, Roshi and how DB works just for the sake of their narrative.
I am not against technique winning over power, but not when the gap is too big or else it just contradicts the past stories.
And there are surely better ways to introduce such a big change than having it suddenly happening in the span of a single chapter. It also makes Goku and everyone else not named Roshi a martial arts incompetent.

This such a shame because I never expected Toyotaro to produce a chapter that ignores what was written in the past by Toriyama and completely fails to represent its characters.
I repeat, this chapter isn’t Dragon Ball. That old man isn’t Roshi, as Roshi never taught his students to focus on technique over strength and he had nothing more to teach them. Do not trust that black haired fighting newbie dude, he is not called Son Goku. The true Son Goku would never lose his temper like that trying to go for pure power and being ridiculed by his foe for that. The true Son Goku never forgot his trainings, as they were the reason why he was that strong. He was never a bad student, he was a fighting genius who could pick up all his teachings extremely fast compared to everyone else.

Do you guys remember Yakon? That showed how Goku surely hadn’t forgotten Popo’s teachings. The anime was faithful to this in the Zen Exhibition Match, when Gohan was still able to fight even though he was blind. That’s Dragon Ball. Call the anime bad as much as you want but it never failed to capture Dragon Ball like this. Sure, it had some inconsistent power scaling (which the manga also has), some flanderization of some personality aspects of the characters and probably one too many callbacks, but it never ever went to such lengths to the point the characters aren’t even recognisable.

The thing that stands out is Toyo contradicted himself. Even in the Super manga, Goku is shown to be a master by how he outsmarted Botamo instead of going to his full power, figures out how to counter Hit’s Time-Skip, did a baby version of the Super Saiyan God to Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan switching technique, figured out how to completely mastered Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, and even came up with the idea to learn the Evil Containment Wave to be an immortal.

Yet somehow ‘Goku only focus on power and needs his old master to show him the way’. Like, what? Who is Toyo’s editor?

[TheShadowEmperor8055]

I knew I was gonna wake up to a shitstorm

When I first saw the initial leaks of the chapter, especially the Roshi vs Jiren, I grinned and was like “what even is this manga anymore?”

Way too obvious that Toyotaro is rushing this and just wants to get this manga done, which is a pity. I thought the arcs before this did pretty decently, but this, oh my.

Only thing I liked about this chapter is that it maintains the battle royale feel better than the anime. People aren’t standing around watching other fights while on the battlefield.

And that’s it.

Gohan saying he was relying on his human power over his Saiyan power... yeah, right -__- So basically, according to Piccolo, he pulls a DBS Broly and is “learning during the damn fight”. How is that him relying on his human power and neglecting his Saiyan power? And Kefla still feels very nerfed in my opinion, compared to Caulifla and Kale, which is ridiculous.

And the manga making Goku out to be “the worst student”, who is “inexperienced” with “little resolve”... Goku is many things, but he is neither of these three. I’d expect the anime to characterize him like this, not the manga. As for Roshi dodging Jiren for pages, I don’t even... if it’s one thing I did not expect from the manga, it was this. Especially since the manga was much more consistent with power-scaling than the anime. This type of blunder I’d expect from the anime, not the manga. Roshi vs Jiren shouldn’t even be a thought unless you are playing a video game, much less be an actual fight in the manga.

To run down the transformations we’ve seen, SS had anger into it. SS2, also anger. SS3, there was training. SSG, there was a donation of power. SSB, there was training. SS Rage... I mean, it’s obvious what this had. SSGSSE, at least Vegeta suffered a heavy attack that made him stronger. Goku had an even heavier attack for UI Omen to appear. I thought SS Rage and SSGSSE came out of complete nowhere, but Omen in the manga somehow managed to blindside me even more. It just... happened. And for less than a second, no less, and it achieved practically nothing. I’d expect something known as the “ultimate technique” and the pinnacle of fighting to be introduced with and go out with a bang, something the anime did well.

I guess the one thing I can look forward to is the conclusion of the Vegeta vs Toppo fight? I’ll be surprised if Toyotaro makes that fight worse than what we saw in the anime with their final fight. Funny how Vegeta had Toppo on the ground on his back while in surprise over Goku getting UI.

Overall, as I alluded to earlier, it’s too evident that Toyotaro just wants to get this over with no matter what at this juncture.

Anyone notice how Gohan’s gi was ripped up and came back to normal as he ringed out?

[HeroR]

This tournament feels so “tiny” in the manga. There’s no tension whatsoever, the stakes aren’t felt and there’s no scale in the fights. The Gods other than Beerus and Whish didn’t even comment about Roshi’s UI-like power or Goku’s Ultra Instinct.
So much for the ultimate power.

Well, Dragon Ball doesn’t really have ‘stakes’. Although UI went over like a wet fart.

[lord turbo]

I read the full translated chapter on Viz comics. My final verdict - I liked it. It's a throwback to all the masters that have ever trained Goku. I've been saying since Day 1, that many things that Mr. Popo taught Goku since DB are being relevant now like not wasting unnecessary movements. They did address many things. Just because in DBZ, it was all about surpassing one's limits through power, it doesn't mean they have to continue down that path. Goku and Vegeta needed to raise their power of course so they can make some kind of difference against their opponents. This is what DBZ was all about. However, the core and roots of Dragon Ball was founded in martial arts and the purpose of martial arts isn't to just raise one's power and strength. It's technique.

I strongly disagree, DB has always mainly been about power levels so I'm going to nip this revisionist hidtory about this series in the bud. First, Roshi already stated in the narrative he had nothing to teach Goku or Kuririn since they were already well-adapted martial artist, his training consisted entirely of strength increasing and nothing else.

Roshi even stated that Goku has far surpasswd him as a martial artist and that he has nothing left to teach him. This is a problem with Toriyama's DB on a whole since the character of Goku peaked as a super mystical kung fu martial artist when he was trained by Mr. Popo, every since then Toriyama hit a ceiling and had nowhere else to take Goku creatively so he has him forget the things he mastered and further improved, the character goes in a circle in progression and even gets new flaws retroactively added to him that he did not possess beforehand to further push this silly narrative.

Whis's training is identical to Korin and Mr. Popo's training beat for beat. Skills only mattered when opponents where near equal in stats, but Toriyama has such a hard on for exaggerated power levels he focuses entirely on making the next big nad several times stronger than the last as some empty attempt.pf escalation to make the series more exciting even though he peaked there when he had Roshi nuke the moon, lol.

If fighting skills/techniques actually mattered this would have been shown with Tao Pai Pai vs Goku, yet it wasn't and the main point was Goku meeded to get stronger, not better as a fighter to beat Tao. This thing with Roshi in my opinion is just nonsensical jibberish that really doesn't understand the basic theme and logic of DB as a whole.

Its far too late to try an pretend skills/techniques matter at this point in the series.

[emperior]

I don’t care about Gohan being that strong to be honest. It may be bullshit for some for Gohan to be this strong or for Kefla to be this weak, but it doesn’t go against anything established before hand, and we don’t know how strong Kefla is. Gohan is surely around Blue level in both the anime and manga, and I like this as it gives Gohan some well needed action and respect.

What shouldn’t be accepted is everything else in this awful chapter. The way Goku and Roshi are portrayed is downright offensive to the fans of Toriyama’s original work. This is probably the worst thing I have ever seen in something Dragon Ball related in the last years. I wouldn’t expect such a badly written narrative to be written even by Toei’s worst writer, as they have respect for the original work and aren’t going to completely alter Goku, Roshi and how DB works just for the sake of their narrative.
I am not against technique winning over power, but not when the gap is too big or else it just contradicts the past stories.
And there are surely better ways to introduce such a big change than having it suddenly happening in the span of a single chapter. It also makes Goku and everyone else not named Roshi a martial arts incompetent.

This such a shame because I never expected Toyotaro to produce a chapter that ignores what was written in the past by Toriyama and completely fails to represent its characters.
I repeat, this chapter isn’t Dragon Ball. That old man isn’t Roshi, as Roshi never taught his students to focus on technique over strength and he had nothing more to teach them. Do not trust that black haired fighting newbie dude, he is not called Son Goku. The true Son Goku would never lose his temper like that trying to go for pure power and being ridiculed by his foe for that. The true Son Goku never forgot his trainings, as they were the reason why he was that strong. He was never a bad student, he was a fighting genius who could pick up all his teachings extremely fast compared to everyone else.

Do you guys remember Yakon? That showed how Goku surely hadn’t forgotten Popo’s teachings. The anime was faithful to this in the Zen Exhibition Match, when Gohan was still able to fight even though he was blind. That’s Dragon Ball. Call the anime bad as much as you want but it never failed to capture Dragon Ball like this. Sure, it had some inconsistent power scaling (which the manga also has), some flanderization of some personality aspects of the characters and probably one too many callbacks, but it never ever went to such lengths to the point the characters aren’t even recognisable.

The thing that stands out is Toyo contradicted himself. Even in the Super manga, Goku is shown to be a master by how he outsmarted Botamo instead of going to his full power, figures out how to counter Hit’s Time-Skip, did a baby version of the Super Saiyan God to Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan switching technique, figured out how to completely mastered Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, and even came up with the idea to learn the Evil Containment Wave to be an immortal.

Yet somehow ‘Goku only focus on power and needs his old master to show him the way’. Like, what? Who is Toyo’s editor?

Exactly. As others already pointed out, this is not even consistent with Toyotaro’s own thing. He was portaying the characters pretty well up until this chapter, but decided to fuck it all up for the sake of making Roshi look cool, while fucking up Roshi too in the process. I am baffled about how Toyotaro, as a big fan of DB, could even come up with such a terribly-written DB chapter. Did someone else write and draw it? Because that’s what it seems like, as if this came from someone who has never read Dragon Ball.

[PFM18]

That's what Ultimate is supposed to be: Base with all your power available without transforming. The whole idea behind it is to render transformations pointless. The anime fucked up by turning it into one.

Well it is supposed to "be a state that brings you past your limits without changing form" and that is essentially what the anime did. He would turn that "state" on and off, but he wouldn't actually change form he'd still be the same looking Gohan but just a cue in his hair style to let you know what is going on.

His hair shouldn't change, his eyes should, that's the give away and Gohan flipping it on and off like Goku & Vegeta do helps make the impression it's supposed to be a transformation. Which doesn't even make sense as Ultimate gives you access to all your power in your regular state, why he needs to flip it on and off like it'll cost him stamina boggles my mind.

When he became Ultimate in the Buu arc, he gained the very pronounced bang with no other strands of hair coming off. That is the proverbial Ultimate Gohan look that you see everywhere because the bang is what distinguishes him from his normal state or just any time before he had the ritual. His eyes are most certainly not the most distinguishable factor and Toyo portraying his Ultimate state without the bang is an oversight on his part.

[HeroR]

Well it is supposed to "be a state that brings you past your limits without changing form" and that is essentially what the anime did. He would turn that "state" on and off, but he wouldn't actually change form he'd still be the same looking Gohan but just a cue in his hair style to let you know what is going on.

His hair shouldn't change, his eyes should, that's the give away and Gohan flipping it on and off like Goku & Vegeta do helps make the impression it's supposed to be a transformation. Which doesn't even make sense as Ultimate gives you access to all your power in your regular state, why he needs to flip it on and off like it'll cost him stamina boggles my mind.

When he became Ultimate in the Buu arc, he gained the very pronounced bang with no other strands of hair coming off. That is the proverbial Ultimate Gohan look that you see everywhere because the bang is what distinguishes him from his normal state or just any time before he had the ritual. His eyes are most certainly not the most distinguishable factor and Toyo portraying his Ultimate state without the bang is an oversight on his part.

Gohan had the bang before Ulimate. In the Battle of Gods movie and saga, Ultimate Gohan had no bang.

[ekrolo2]

Well it is supposed to "be a state that brings you past your limits without changing form" and that is essentially what the anime did. He would turn that "state" on and off, but he wouldn't actually change form he'd still be the same looking Gohan but just a cue in his hair style to let you know what is going on.

His hair shouldn't change, his eyes should, that's the give away and Gohan flipping it on and off like Goku & Vegeta do helps make the impression it's supposed to be a transformation. Which doesn't even make sense as Ultimate gives you access to all your power in your regular state, why he needs to flip it on and off like it'll cost him stamina boggles my mind.

When he became Ultimate in the Buu arc, he gained the very pronounced bang with no other strands of hair coming off. That is the proverbial Ultimate Gohan look that you see everywhere because the bang is what distinguishes him from his normal state or just any time before he had the ritual. His eyes are most certainly not the most distinguishable factor and Toyo portraying his Ultimate state without the bang is an oversight on his part.

The look is most definitely not the bang, it's the eyes. Those changing to fully enclosed, SS-like eyes in contrast to the usual way Goku and his family have those drawn makes the difference.

If Gohan has bangless hair and eyes 3/4ths closed, him using Ultimate should only give him enclosed SS eyes.

[PFM18]

His hair shouldn't change, his eyes should, that's the give away and Gohan flipping it on and off like Goku & Vegeta do helps make the impression it's supposed to be a transformation. Which doesn't even make sense as Ultimate gives you access to all your power in your regular state, why he needs to flip it on and off like it'll cost him stamina boggles my mind.

When he became Ultimate in the Buu arc, he gained the very pronounced bang with no other strands of hair coming off. That is the proverbial Ultimate Gohan look that you see everywhere because the bang is what distinguishes him from his normal state or just any time before he had the ritual. His eyes are most certainly not the most distinguishable factor and Toyo portraying his Ultimate state without the bang is an oversight on his part.

Gohan had the bang before Ulimate. In the Battle of Gods movie and saga, Ultimate Gohan had no bang.

In the Buu arc he had a couple strands of hair that was kind of a bang, but upon being Ultimate it was the only bang and became more pronounced. It was really the only distinguishing feature that he had.

Also, I don't recall that in the movie and arc. But he was Ultimate with the bang in the manga which makes this that much more inconsistent that he doesn't have it now

[ekrolo2]

When he became Ultimate in the Buu arc, he gained the very pronounced bang with no other strands of hair coming off. That is the proverbial Ultimate Gohan look that you see everywhere because the bang is what distinguishes him from his normal state or just any time before he had the ritual. His eyes are most certainly not the most distinguishable factor and Toyo portraying his Ultimate state without the bang is an oversight on his part.

Gohan had the bang before Ulimate. In the Battle of Gods movie and saga, Ultimate Gohan had no bang.

In the Buu arc he had a couple strands of hair that was kind of a bang, but upon being Ultimate it was the only bang and became more pronounced. It was really the only distinguishing feature that he had.

Also, I don't recall that in the movie and arc. But he was Ultimate with the bang in the manga which makes this that much more inconsistent that he doesn't have it now

Pre-Ultimate eyes & hair:


Post-Ultimate eyes and hair:


The strand is lost later on but that's probs just an esthetic change, Gohan's hair in various forms changes as the arc goes on. The eyes, however, are clearly meant as the de facto visual change to show us he's Ultimate. The fact EoZ Gohan keeps the same eyes but bangless hair adds further credence to this. The anime just fucks up by giving normal Gohan SS eyes when he has no business having them without Ultimate.

[kudo6000]

Gohan had the bang before Ulimate. In the Battle of Gods movie and saga, Ultimate Gohan had no bang.

He had a bang in the film.

[Simere]

In an ongoing story I think it's important not to cheapen the perception of prior events. If you have an unbeatable enemy where nothing works against them, but they manage to come up with some new thing to beat him, you shouldn't introduce a technique an arc or two later that they knew all along that would have worked. Emphasis on knew all along.

Is this that? Well, I don't know, but it feels awfully similar. When Goku was fighting Roshi, Piccolo and Boo, that was the best of the best. Goku was fighting the strongest enemies around using everything he had learned up to that point. He was the best he could have been. That his best still couldn't overcome is what generated tension and, from there, progression(of the entire story and world). Now we're saying he wasn't bringing to bear everything he had learned. Now we're saying he never learned or has forgotten what he was taught.

In the anime Goku vs Caulifla established the idea that power must be combined with technique. What that did was change the perception of all prior fights in the series: it was always about martial arts. Raditz, Freeza, Cell—all these guys who were able to keep up with Goku weren't just powerhouses, they were also gifted martial artists. This chapter establishes that Goku has been ignoring the basics of martial arts his entire life. That doesn't just affect him, but everyone else as well.

[HeroR]

In an ongoing story I think it's important not to cheapen the perception of prior events. If you have an unbeatable enemy where nothing works against them, but they manage to come up with some new thing to beat him, you shouldn't introduce a technique an arc or two later that they knew all along that would have worked. Emphasis on knew all along.

Is this that? Well, I don't know, but it feels awfully similar. When Goku was fighting Roshi, Piccolo and Boo, that was the best of the best. Goku was fighting the strongest enemies around using everything he had learned up to that point. He was the best he could have been. That his best still couldn't overcome is what generated tension and, from there, progression(of the entire story and world). Now we're saying he wasn't bringing to bear everything he had learned. Now we're saying he never learned or has forgotten what he was taught.

In the anime Goku vs Caulifla established the idea that power must be combined with technique. What that did was change the perception of all prior fights in the series: it was always about martial arts. Raditz, Freeza, Cell—all these guys who were able to keep up with Goku weren't just powerhouses, they were also gifted martial artists. This chapter establishes that Goku has been ignoring the basics of martial arts his entire life. That doesn't just affect him, but everyone else as well.

I wouldn’t call Raditz and Freeza martial artists. Raditz is closer to a soldier and Freeza never even trained before being revived.

[Simere]

I wouldn’t call Raditz and Freeza martial artists. Raditz is closer to a soldier and Freeza never even trained before being revived.

If they could keep up with Goku, they were. That's what the logic of Goku vs Caulifla established and it can't be escaped, just like the manga's logic can't be now. Soldiers are trained in martial arts and, as with everything else, Freeza can be chalked up as innately talented.

[jplaya2023]

so base gohan just stalemated kefla :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

goku is being drawn wrong in this chapter he only get's skinny using ssj red

the whole roshi thing is a mess, only thing is goku remembering his old masters.

[emperior]

I wouldn’t call Raditz and Freeza martial artists. Raditz is closer to a soldier and Freeza never even trained before being revived.

If they could keep up with Goku, they were. That's what the logic of Goku vs Caulifla established and it can't be escaped, just like the manga's logic can't be now. Soldiers are trained in martial arts and, as with everything else, Freeza can be chalked up as innately talented.

Which absolutely makes sense. Those foes were probably that strong exactly because they were martial artists. Even Raditz was telling Goku he would need more training to keep up with him.
Freeza was keeping up with Goku even after he turned into a Super Saiyan.
Goku beat Piccolo because he was a slightly better martial artist and played his cards better, as they were equal power-wise.

[Miracles]

and Goku who trained with him and more powerful masters (before Whis) had never show a small glimpse of this technique

They absolutely have discussed this kind of concept before. They even go out of their way to remind you right there in the chapter itself with just a few of the countless times it's been brought up in the history of the franchise:



All of that stuff references actual conversations from the original series where the same basic principles were being discussed. Ultra Instinct is a wholly consistent concept based on previous material. Sure, it's not by name, but I think part of the point of what they're going for here: all roads seem to lead to this end-point in martial arts.

I have a lot of issues with a lot of what's going on in Super overall, both in anime and manga form including a ton of the surrounding context in this chapter itself, but Ultra Instinct and its rollout as a concept is in no way one of those issues.

Exactly. It's like Full power Blue being a carry on of Full power Super Saiyan from the Cell saga.
I see why Shueisha stamped the manga as the continuity of Toriyama's original cause it does it's best to continue actual plot points.

I liked the chapter, I appreciate the fast paced back and forth between different exchanges. Love the way Vegeta and Toppo were trading blows. Felt Dragonballish.
I didn't like the fact that Gohan was able to match Kefla however it seems Kefla's power level was a mystery so I guess It's OK.
BTW Gohan was using Ultimate form, He didn't need Super Saiyan then [Old Kaioshin] so he didn't need it now.

I liked the way Goku triggered UI by remembering his old lessons, mastering the spirit and not just the body.
Jiren finally stopped playing with Roshi and just pwned him when his eyes became focused. The fans were crying over nothing.