Canon matters

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ABED
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Re: Canon matters

Post by ABED » Sat Jan 05, 2019 10:46 pm

ZodaEX wrote:
ABED wrote:
ZodaEX wrote:
If there is an official canon then tell us what it is.
The original manga, we know for sure. What would it mean to say the original story wasn't?
Okay cool I never knew that before. Which specific official entity has declared that the original manga version of events is cannon? That's the question I keep asking, but always gets dodged by people here.
You don't need an explicit statement. Toriyama wrote the story, it's implicit. You think your question gets dodged; no one ever explains what the hell it means to say that the original story isn't canon.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by ZodaEX » Sat Jan 05, 2019 10:55 pm

ABED wrote:
ZodaEX wrote:
ABED wrote:The original manga, we know for sure. What would it mean to say the original story wasn't?
Okay cool I never knew that before. Which specific official entity has declared that the original manga version of events is cannon? That's the question I keep asking, but always gets dodged by people here.
You don't need an explicit statement. Toriyama wrote the story, it's implicit. You think your question gets dodged; no one ever explains what the hell it means to say that the original story isn't canon.
No, I do need an explicit statement from an official source in order to recognize any Dragon Ball story line events an official canon. If I don't receive one, then the canon is only as official as the individual stating the said canon. In this case it's ABED's personal headcannon. Official canon in Dragon Ball is not as simple as it is in other stories such as Star Wars. The difference being that Star Wars factually has an official canon and Dragon Ball factually does not have an official canon.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by KBABZ » Sat Jan 05, 2019 11:17 pm

ZodaEX wrote:No, I do need an explicit statement from an official source in order to recognize any Dragon Ball story line events an official canon. If I don't receive one, then the canon is only as official as the individual stating the said canon. In this case it's ABED's personal headcannon. Official canon in Dragon Ball is not as simple as it is in other stories such as Star Wars. The difference being that Star Wars factually has an official canon and Dragon Ball factually does not have an official canon.
It's a general assumption that Toriyama's manga is canon to everything else because, similar to Star Wars, nearly every work in the franchise that comes out after that uses it at a base, unless stated otherwise. With Star Wars it's the movies, with Dragon Ball it's the original manga. GT, for example, follows Z, which is heavily based on the manga. Same thing for the Yamcha manga, and Xenoverse, and FighterZ. They're all using the manga as a base and ruleset, except for clearly-stated examples where they deviate for creativity reasons. Because of that, you don't need to outright say that the manga is canon to all other works.

This is different to, say, Transformers, or Yu-gi-oh!, or Digimon, or Ben 10, where every couple of years they introduce a brand new continuity that is incredibly different from all the others.

You also appear to have missed the discussion where we concluded that Dragon Ball doesn't have a unified canon. Because of how the franchise has been going 30 years not caring about that stuff, it's impossible to try and consolidate everything into what really happened or not (how are you supposed to reconcile FighterZ with GT with Super with Xenoverse with that time-travelling phone game??). It's more logical to instead say that Dragon Ball has a lot of continuity families (DB+Z+GT, or DB+Kai+Super, Heroes, etc) that have their own internal canon (GT is not canon to Super, for example).

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Re: Canon matters

Post by Hulk10 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:00 am

KBABZ wrote:
ZodaEX wrote:No, I do need an explicit statement from an official source in order to recognize any Dragon Ball story line events an official canon. If I don't receive one, then the canon is only as official as the individual stating the said canon. In this case it's ABED's personal headcannon. Official canon in Dragon Ball is not as simple as it is in other stories such as Star Wars. The difference being that Star Wars factually has an official canon and Dragon Ball factually does not have an official canon.
It's a general assumption that Toriyama's manga is canon to everything else because, similar to Star Wars, nearly every work in the franchise that comes out after that uses it at a base, unless stated otherwise. With Star Wars it's the movies, with Dragon Ball it's the original manga. GT, for example, follows Z, which is heavily based on the manga. Same thing for the Yamcha manga, and Xenoverse, and FighterZ. They're all using the manga as a base and ruleset, except for clearly-stated examples where they deviate for creativity reasons. Because of that, you don't need to outright say that the manga is canon to all other works.

This is different to, say, Transformers, or Yu-gi-oh!, or Digimon, or Ben 10, where every couple of years they introduce a brand new continuity that is incredibly different from all the others.

You also appear to have missed the discussion where we concluded that Dragon Ball doesn't have a unified canon. Because of how the franchise has been going 30 years not caring about that stuff, it's impossible to try and consolidate everything into what really happened or not (how are you supposed to reconcile FighterZ with GT with Super with Xenoverse with that time-travelling phone game??). It's more logical to instead say that Dragon Ball has a lot of continuity families (DB+Z+GT, or DB+Kai+Super, Heroes, etc) that have their own internal canon (GT is not canon to Super, for example).
You put that quite beautifully.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by KBABZ » Sun Jan 06, 2019 2:26 am

Hulk10 wrote:You put that quite beautifully.
I try, thanks! : D

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Re: Canon matters

Post by Marlowe89 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:36 am

First of all, I think people largely tend to complicate the concept of "canon" more than necessary.

As Shueisha themselves have already implied, the original author's vision takes precedence over just about everything. And sure -- Super does have its own sub-continuities with alternate takes depending on the medium, but both of those versions (and even the recent movies) fundamentally tell the same stories. There are retcons, contradictions and perhaps even continuity errors, but that doesn't mean all this stuff isn't intended to follow an established thoroughline.

Does canon matter? Now that's a much more interesting question.

I don't think it does. Countering the idea that some new element might establish a "bad" foundation for future stories, isn't that par for the course? The original manga played that game on multiple occasions; shaking up old foundations and building new ones is nothing new for Toriyama. People also should have known that Minus was going to have a lasting effect on the franchise the day it was released.

Ultimately, the old movies and TV specials aren't going anywhere. The main story, even pre-Kanzenban, isn't going anywhere. Nobody has to feel beholden to modern material. If you're convinced you won't like it beforehand, just ignore it.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by ZodaEX » Sun Jan 06, 2019 5:16 am

Marlowe89 wrote: Does canon matter? Now that's a much more interesting question..
Official cannon as laid out by the legal owners and producers of the Dragon Ball franchise matter to me. ABED's personal and unofficial head-cannon does not.

For me personally, I see Dragon Ball as having about 3 primary continuities but that's just how I like to view things at the current moment. My opinion is subject to change. I would never claim to be an official authority on canon because i'm not.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by Nafno » Sun Jan 06, 2019 6:01 am

I don't know why is Dragon Ball fandom the only one (or at least the only one I know) that constantly insists that canon has to be officially claimed by the legal owners. That is not what canon means, and actually, can even be the opposite of what canon means.

The term canon (the non-biblical meaning) was created by Sherlock Holmes fans to differentiate the content created and accepted by Arthur Conan Doyle from the rest of the works made by other writers or media. Their official condition is then irrelevant. Companies saw with time the potential of the canon term, as it was valued by fans, and started using it for marketing purposes as a synonym of "continuity", but that doesn't change its original meaning.

For example, it doesn't matter that Disney claims that they have created a Star Wars Canon. Canon is only what George Lucas created. In the case of Gargoyles, the creator Greg Weisman does not have the rights of his own creation, yet his in-universe claims are canon. Are they official? No. But they are canon.

And as I said, this is something that pretty much every fandom understands. From classic literature such as Lord of the Rings or The chronicles of Narnia to manga fandoms such as Detective Conan and videogame fandoms such as Metal Gear. But when it comes to Dragon Ball, it seems that people don't want to accept the meaning of the magical word "canon", maybe because they make the association "canon = good", and if you say something they like is not canon, they feel you are saying that what they like is not good, which is not true.

It is a shame because, as media have become increasingly more complex in its development, there are some very interesting debates to have. What is canon in a TV show with multiple writers? Is it the creator? Is it the showrunner? Is JJ Abrams the one who dictates Lost's canon, considering he created it but then pretty much abandoned the show? What happens when there are different creators who disagree? How does transmedia fit within all of this? Even within the realms of Dragon Ball, the way they are developing Super also raises some interesting questions about its canonicity. But "Official source equals canon" is not one of them, it's a misconstruction.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by Grimlock » Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:42 am

Nafno wrote:I don't know why is Dragon Ball fandom the only one (or at least the only one I know) that constantly insists that canon has to be officially claimed by the legal owners.
Because that is how you establish canonicity. Without it, all you have are fans thinking their own way of following the events are the correct way, and they even dare to state their choices in a way that seems to be a fact, when in reality, it is just their "headcanon/personal choices" at the end of the day.

What they don't realize is how contradictory they can be, you often see people here saying that "everything Toriyama do is canonical by default" from the same people that think Toei or Toyotaro retellings are the "true version of the stories, and the movies events are not to be taken into account", when we have evidences that Toriyama was not even involved with the retellings. For them, there is only anime and manga continuity. Thankfully, Dragon Ball Super: Broly once again puts that way of thinking in a trash can, because once you watch it, you will/can definitely say that there is one more continuity, Toriyama's continuity: the movies, their take on the events that were retold by other entities with their own interpretation and most likely purposeful differences.

Without an official statement, we don't know which of the three continuities that there is in Dragon Ball Super are the "correct version of the events". Without an official statement, all you have left are fans statements, which does not matter in the slightest. Without an official statement, everyone is entitled to consider whatever they want and it will always come down to be nothing more than personal choices.
Last edited by Grimlock on Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by KBABZ » Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:46 am

Grimlock wrote:Without an official statement , all you have left are fans statements, which does not matter in the slightest. Without an official statement, everyone is entitled to consider whatever they want and it will always come down to be nothing more than personal choices.
Which for Dragon Ball can be quite interesting because of what ingredients you can put into your personal canon sandwich. Manga or Anime? Jump special or not? Trunks: The Story of the Trunks Special? Did you like Jaco? Will you throw DB- into the bin? GT or Super? Kai over Z? The fun part is that because there is no version of the story that supersedes the others, nobody's really wrong except in the more blatant instances!

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Re: Canon matters

Post by ABED » Sun Jan 06, 2019 10:53 am

ZodaEX wrote:
ABED wrote:
ZodaEX wrote:
Okay cool I never knew that before. Which specific official entity has declared that the original manga version of events is cannon? That's the question I keep asking, but always gets dodged by people here.
You don't need an explicit statement. Toriyama wrote the story, it's implicit. You think your question gets dodged; no one ever explains what the hell it means to say that the original story isn't canon.
No, I do need an explicit statement from an official source in order to recognize any Dragon Ball story line events an official canon. If I don't receive one, then the canon is only as official as the individual stating the said canon. In this case it's ABED's personal headcannon. Official canon in Dragon Ball is not as simple as it is in other stories such as Star Wars. The difference being that Star Wars factually has an official canon and Dragon Ball factually does not have an official canon.
First, headcanon is not a thing, second, official canon is redundantly redundant, third, the term canon in the context of narrative fiction was first applied to Sherlock Holmes and Doyle never stated what was canon, ergo you don't need an official explicit statement.

Lastly, what the hell would it mean to say DB doesn't have a canon? If it's not the original story, what else is there? What does it mean to say the original story isn't canon? No one answers that question.

No, I don't think canon ultimately matters, but I wonder why not everyone is on the same page about the concept. I like what I like and I don't think whether something is canon determines its quality. It's interesting what is considered canon, but it's not a requirement for enjoyment.
What is canon in a TV show with multiple writers?
It's what happens in the show.
Last edited by ABED on Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by KBABZ » Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:55 am

ABED wrote:Lastly, what the hell would it mean to say DB doesn't have a canon? If it's not the original story, what else is there? What does it mean to say the original story isn't canon? No one answers that question.
I agree, although in some situations a redo or significant re-edit of the first work is done in such a way that it replaces the original. Star Wars jumps to mind, but there are also others such as Twin Snakes (the remake of Metal Gear Solid).

Headcanon is a thing, but not in an official capacity. As The Legend of Zelda proves, you can headcanon all you want, but it ultimately doesn't matter in the face of, well, time. If you think your own headcanon is gospel and not something that's strictly a personal viewpoint, you're doing this whole "fan" thing wrong, haha.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by ABED » Sun Jan 06, 2019 12:33 pm

I should be clearer, headcanon as a term should not exist. What you imagine, or wish to happen is just that. It's what you wish would happen, but it's not a type of canon. It confuses the issue. Why did the term come into being?
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Re: Canon matters

Post by KBABZ » Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:05 pm

ABED wrote:I should be clearer, headcanon as a term should not exist. What you imagine, or wish to happen is just that. It's what you wish would happen, but it's not a type of canon. It confuses the issue. Why did the term come into being?
Because people like to self-sort these stories for themselves, and sometimes that means including non-canon stories that they like and excluding canon stories that they don't (DB- and the Kanzenban ending being particularly pertinent examples for Dragon Ball). Because Dragon Ball has a bunch of continuity families but no official word on what the prime canon is outside of the manga, that leaves the franchise ripe for laying down what your headcanon is. For example I like to think that the Android 21 story did happen after Super, whilst also acknowledging that's a personal thing I'm doing because I like 21 so much and isn't actually canon.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by ABED » Sun Jan 06, 2019 2:20 pm

No, I get what the term denotes, what I don't like is the term itself. It's unnecessary and confusing.
The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi. Its job isn't to blow our minds. It's to be within reach.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by KBABZ » Sun Jan 06, 2019 2:40 pm

ABED wrote:No, I get what the term denotes, what I don't like is the term itself. It's unnecessary and confusing.
Well, the canon bit is obvious, the head bit is an acknowledgement that it's all in your head and not really actual. If you say "that's just my headcanon", then it means that what you just stated is a personal preference that you don't actually consider to be canon at the end of the day. Like my Android 21 thing. It's also handy when presenting theories like the intricacies of time travel in Dragon Ball, or coming up with solutions to plotholes.

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Re: Canon matters

Post by ABED » Sun Jan 06, 2019 2:56 pm

KBABZ wrote:
ABED wrote:No, I get what the term denotes, what I don't like is the term itself. It's unnecessary and confusing.
Well, the canon bit is obvious, the head bit is an acknowledgement that it's all in your head and not really actual. If you say "that's just my headcanon", then it means that what you just stated is a personal preference that you don't actually consider to be canon at the end of the day. Like my Android 21 thing. It's also handy when presenting theories like the intricacies of time travel in Dragon Ball, or coming up with solutions to plotholes.
I get the concept. Why are you defining it for me? If it's in your head, it's not canon, so why create a term that contradicts itself? "In my mind..." should suffice.

The extent to which I think canon matters is what events the audience is supposed to take into account. For instance, Will & Grace had a series finale over a decade ago. However, in the revival, they dismissed it so they could tell stories that would otherwise contradict the finale. Even if there aren't contradictions, stories often take place in more than one medium.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by Hulk10 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 4:17 pm

KBABZ wrote:
Hulk10 wrote:You put that quite beautifully.
I try, thanks! : D
No prob.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by laserkid » Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:47 am

Does canon matter?

There's been a lot said here and there's a lot of great arguments made about this, and I more or less will be really boring and say both yes, and no.

There's a valid argument to be made to check the continuity to a specific part of the franchise. For example, I think you're on safe grounds if you want to say the original 13 DBZ movies are not canon to Dragon Ball Super (especially given Broli's recreation). It's reasonable to explain certain parts of the franchise don't gel well with other parts.

The problem arises when people want to state an absolute canon. There just isn't one.

To that end let's look at the Bardock Special Vs DB Minus/DBS: Broly. One can certainly point out that DBS: Broly being a part of Dragon Ball Super supersedes the prior work when considering Dragon Ball Super, but it does not necessarily matter to someone viewing the original Dragon Ball Z. Someone in that case could choose whichever they like better and be perfectly valid.

TLDR: Canonization in and of itself doesn't matter, since there is no one objective canon, only relative canon, and for the bulk of the story, there are several potential canons.
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Re: Canon matters

Post by ZodaEX » Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:51 am

laserkid wrote: I think you're on safe grounds if you want to say the original 13 DBZ movies are not canon to Dragon Ball Super (especially given Broli's recreation). It's reasonable to explain certain parts of the franchise don't gel well with other parts.

The problem arises when people want to state an absolute canon. There just isn't one.

To that end let's look at the Bardock Special Vs DB Minus/DBS: Broly. One can certainly point out that DBS: Broly being a part of Dragon Ball Super supersedes the prior work when considering Dragon Ball Super, but it does not necessarily matter to someone viewing the original Dragon Ball Z. Someone in that case could choose whichever they like better and be perfectly valid.

TLDR: Canonization in and of itself doesn't matter, since there is no one objective canon, only relative canon, and for the bulk of the story, there are several potential canons.

No, you are not on safe grounds to say the original 13 DBZ movies are not canon because you're just a Dragon Ball fan. You're head canon is no more correct or incorrect than any other fan's head canon. These are just your beliefs after all and not necessarily theirs.

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