Your ideal Dragon Ball sequel.

[Lord Beerus]

But it's a rut of a slightly different kind. It's martial artists with the same goals. It's not growth it's the appearance of growth.

And that's probably the most insulting part of what's going on in modern Dragon Ball. They try to sell the idea of new transformations as character growth. Toei, Toriyama and Toyotaro are all guilty of this.

Travelling across the universe isn't new for two reasons. 1) We've seen the characters travel across the universe, and 2) It's the same arc as the first one, but the distances are longer.. That's not fundamentally new.

The King Piccolo arc are was basically an extended version the Taopaipai section of the Red Ribbon Army arc. There are going be similarities in the foundation, but the intent and execution is what matters the most.

It wasn't. He wasn't actually a kid.

He wasn't a kid mentally, but he was a kid physically. And that was specifically to limit his abilities

At least GT did something genuinely new and interesting with the Evil Dragons.

I wouldn't mind for anyone to take another stab at the Evil Dragons arc. Phenomenal idea, that was colossally wasted.

[ABED]

The King Piccolo arc are was basically an extended version the Taopaipai section of the Red Ribbon Army arc. There are going be similarities in the foundation, but the intent and execution is what matters the most.

They have some commonalities, but Piccolo's goals were different. Tao was in it for the money. Piccolo wanted to terrify and murder people indiscriminately.

And that was specifically to limit his abilities

But somehow artificially creating the appearance of development by going back to the beginning but with a new cast is a good idea?

I wouldn't mind for anyone to take another stab at the Evil Dragons arc. Phenomenal idea, that was colossally wasted.

One of the only times we're in agreement.

[WittyUsername]

The Evil Dragons is probably one of the most original concepts that Toei ever did with Dragon Ball. With that being said, I can’t imagine it being revisited for the foreseeable future. Sure, we got to see Toriyama’s take on Broly, but the Evil Dragons aren’t nearly as popular. I think we’d be more likely to see Cooler before that.

[Lord Beerus]

They have some commonalities, but Piccolo's goals were different. Tao was in it for the money. Piccolo wanted to terrify and murder people indiscriminately.

And that was same deal with the initial arc for GT. They cast needed to find the Dragon Balls, but they had to travel across the universe to find them, and they only had year to do it before Earth would be destroyed. Compared to how the first Dragon Ball hunt was and it was Bulma wanting a boyfriend and it was a relatively tension free arc.

But somehow artificially creating the appearance of development by going back to the beginning but with a new cast is a good idea?

You don't have to go back the beginning with a new cast. They don't need to go Dragon Ball hunting to start the plot or have a tournaments constantly. The ways that confrontations and development can occur don't have to be confined to what Dragon Ball has already done. And even it the same in fundamental structure, the execution is what matter the most.

[ABED]

The first arcs of GT and DB are the same structure (lots of individual adventures) have the same goal of gathering the DB's, go from place to place usually solving the problems of the inhabitants. There's even a flat out direct lift where one character has to cross dress to stop a village from being terrorized and receive the DB as a reward. It's a far more specific and blatant rip off of what came before. It wasn't moving things forward, it just scaled up.

You don't have to go back the beginning with a new cast. They don't need to go Dragon Ball hunting to start the plot or have a tournaments constantly. The ways that confrontations and development can occur don't have to be confined to what Dragon Ball has already done. And even it the same in fundamental structure, the execution is what matter the most.

Nothing here changes that it's starting from an earlier point just to tell the same story of self improvement. You say they don't have to be confined to what DB has already done and don't have to hunt for the DB's to start the plot or have tournaments, and as previously stated, it has none of the previous cast - but somehow it's still DB at its core. There is nothing about your idea that can't be done as its own series and be the better for it. INstead it carries the baggage that comes with being DB. It's DB in name only.

[Lord Beerus]

The first arcs of GT and DB are the same structure (lots of individual adventures) have the same goal of gathering the DB's, go from place to place usually solving the problems of the inhabitants. There's even a flat out direct lift where one character has to cross dress to stop a village from being terrorized and receive the DB as a reward. It's a far more specific and blatant rip off of what came before. It wasn't moving things forward, it just scaled up.

And that's what Dragon Ball arcs in general do: keep the foundation relatively the same, but just scale up stakes. Travelling across the universe, knowing that the cast had only a year to find the Dragon Balls, could have served a great avenue to further develop Goku or Pan or Trunks, by having them realising they need to be pragmatic or perhaps you could have had various different planets have various different environments that challenged the cast in a unique way mentally and/or physically. The sad fact is Toei just went the easy and nostalgia driven route. They had a whole universe to play with, and wasted it.

Nothing here changes that it's starting from an earlier point just to tell the same story of self improvement. You say they don't have to be confined to what DB has already done and don't have to hunt for the DB's to start the plot or have tournaments, and as previously stated, it has none of the previous cast - but somehow it's still DB at its core. There is nothing about your idea that can't be done as its own series and be the better for it. INstead it carries the baggage that comes with being DB. It's DB in name only.

The baggage that any Dragon Ball story taking place the original cast are gone is having high fantasy martial arts. Part of Dragon Ball's unique selling point was it at times the absurd serial escalation in conflict and in drama that was fuelled by character dynamics. And no arc does that better than the Freeza arc, which was coincidentally also where Dragon Ball peaked in popularity.

A sequel to Dragon Ball just needs to remember how much Wuxia and Xianxia novels heavily influences the character archetypes, tone, theme and setting. Because that element is what distinguishes Dragon Ball from most other shonen manga and anime.

[ABED]

A sequel to Dragon Ball just needs to remember how much Wuxia and Xianxia novels heavily influences the character archetypes, tone, theme and setting. Because that element is what distinguishes Dragon Ball from most other shonen manga and anime.

The genre isn't what distinguishes DB from other shonen and anime.

[Lord Beerus]

The genre isn't what distinguishes DB from other shonen and anime.

It is though. How the characters are written, how the world is detailed and created... it all comes down to the influences and tropes you would only see in the Wuxia genre and Xianxia novels. Hell, the Dragon Balls themselves were a concept taken from a Japanese novel epic Wuxia novel called Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, with the only distinction being that story had eight balls and Toriyama chose to have seven.

[ABED]

The genre isn't what distinguishes DB from other shonen and anime.

It is though. How the characters are written, how the world is detailed and created... it all comes down to the influences and tropes you would only see in the Wuxia genre and Xianxia novels. Hell, the Dragon Balls themselves were a concept taken from a Japanese novel epic Wuxia novel called Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, with the only distinction being that story had eight balls and Toriyama chose to have seven.

By definition it's not. Genre is a categorization based on shared elements and tropes. The distinguishing feature of DB can't be that it belongs to a category with many other stories. The rest or your paragraph undercuts your point seeing as how you see how common those elements are.

Like any good story, the things that distinguishes DB are its characters and the writer's voice.

[Lord Beerus]

By definition it's not. Genre is a categorization based on shared elements and tropes. The distinguishing feature of DB can't be that it belongs to a category with many other stories. The rest or your paragraph undercuts your point seeing as how you see how common those elements are.

Like any good story, the things that distinguishes DB are its characters and the writers voice.

I'm talking specifically about shonen anime and manga. I mean, yeah, I'm aware there many wuxia manga and anime out there, but their appeal isn't specified toward young boys. It usually towards a niche adult audience who have basic common knowledge of the Wuxia genre.

It isn't just about picking and choosing a handful of the narrative tropes and character archetypes from the Wuxia genre and then bastardising them (which is most shonen action anime and manga post-Dragon Ball are very guilty of doing). It's combining nearly the entirely catalogue of traits that Wuxia is know for -- in their purest form -- as well branching out to other kung-fu movies and Xianxia novels that were woven from the same cloth. The amount of shonen anime/manga that do that as faithfully and as overt as Dragon Ball did/does, I could count on one hand.

[ABED]

By definition it's not. Genre is a categorization based on shared elements and tropes. The distinguishing feature of DB can't be that it belongs to a category with many other stories. The rest or your paragraph undercuts your point seeing as how you see how common those elements are.

Like any good story, the things that distinguishes DB are its characters and the writers voice.

I'm talking specifically about shonen anime and manga. I mean, yeah, I'm aware there many wuxia manga and anime out there, but their appeal isn't specified toward young boys. It usually towards a niche adult audience who have basic common knowledge of the Wuxia genre.

It isn't just about picking and choosing a handful of the narrative tropes and character archetypes from the Wuxia genre and then bastardising them (which is most shonen action anime and manga post-Dragon Ball are very guilty of doing). It's combining nearly the entirely catalogue of traits that Wuxia is know for -- in their purest form -- as well branching out to other kung-fu movies and Xianxia novels that were woven from the same cloth. The amount of shonen anime/manga that do that as faithfully and as overt as Dragon Ball did/does, I could count on one hand.

That's not why DB has amassed a worldwide audience that continues to find new audiences and who don't even know Wuxia. It certainly helps but it's not THE reason DB has is so damn popular. It's also part of a writers voice. It's the elements that interest them and makes it all feel like a whole instead of something Frankensteined together.

[Mad Swami]

At least GT did something genuinely new and interesting with the Evil Dragons.

I wouldn't mind for anyone to take another stab at the Evil Dragons arc. Phenomenal idea, that was colossally wasted.

I 100% agree that the shadow dragons are an amazing idea. IMO the best idea to come from DB since it ended originally after the Buu saga. The only things close to matching it for me is the idea of Zamasu and Beerus. However this argument is something I don't agree with. Original does not mean good. Now that may not be what your saying but I think it should be acknowledged that while problematic, Super is superior to GT. As a forgiving fan of GT and someone who prefers it's concepts over Super, I can't honestly say it's executed any better. Idea wise though it blows Super out of the water if you ask me.

[Lord Beerus]

That's not why DB has amassed a worldwide audience that continues to find new audiences and who don't even know Wuxia. It certainly helps but it's not THE reason DB has is so damn popular. It's also part of a writers voice. It's the elements that interest them and makes it all feel like a whole instead of something Frankensteined together.

This goes back to the point are made a lot earlier: nobody knew any better. The nuances of how the characters were written and how the world was drawn, from the perspective of those who read Weekly Shonen Jump, was unlike anything they had seen before because a shonen manga being that heavily influenced from the Wuxia genre were literally non-existent, excluding Fist Of The Star, which ironically also became incredibly for the exact same reason.

It's only know because of how much shonen manga and anime have pretty bastardised what gave Dragon Ball (and Dragon Ball itself is guilty of doing this, especially in the modern material) its unique edge that Dragon Ball in unfortunately looked at in hindsight as just another fighting manga/anime, despite the fact that nuances in the characters were unique to a genre a lot of fans had never heard of and was as old as time.

I'm not trying to discount how much fans grew attached to characters, but unfortunately with how the landscape of shonen anime and manga has changed, with a lot of action shonen anime taking traits and narrative tropes from Dragon Ball and not realising what making the show so popular was less of how uniquely written the characters were but more to due with the fact the landscape of shonen manga in the 1980's was totally new to the genre of Wuxia. Not realising there are a several ways you can write a character from the same archetype. I mean, Goku, Kenshiro, Yusuke and Ranma were written using the same character archetype, but there are many nuances that make them distinct and unique characters when comparing them to one another, and especially when comparing them other action shonen manga/anime characters from the early 2000s and onwards.

[ABED]

You seem to just be concentrating on the first gen Japanese fans but DB was a worldwide success, and it's not the genre whether well known or not that determines how successful a story becomes.

I'm not trying to discount how much fans grew attached to characters,

Yes you are, as well as vastly overstating how important genre is to DB's success or any property's success for that matter. Being different doesn't necessarily generate fan interest. Hell, DB didn't start becoming successful until Toriyama geared his story towards a more popular genre and not the Journey to the West Parody.

It's stories and characters that audiences emotionally invest in.

[Lord Beerus]

You seem to just be concentrating on the first gen Japanese fans but DB was a worldwide success, and it's not the genre whether well known or not that determines how successful a story becomes.

Dragon Ball's success is owed to how big it became with the first generation of fans in Japan. That success carried Dragon Ball to other parts of the world. I mean, FUNimation was founded as company just so that Toei could sell the licensing rights in America.

Yes you are, as well as vastly overstating how important genre is to DB's success or any property's success for that matter. Being different doesn't necessarily generate fan interest. Hell, DB didn't start becoming successful until Toriyama geared his story towards a more popular genre and not the Journey to the West Parody.

It's stories and characters that audiences emotionally invest in.

I never said fans getting invested in the character or stories immensely, isn't an important factor. I'm just saying that the spectacle of the show was major draw. Which it was. There are a lot people who have superficial attachment to Dragon Ball.

For the million of children and teenagers who first watched Dragon Ball Z, judging by it's aesthetic alone, it was unlike any other Western animated TV show they had watched prior. And that comes down the genre that Dragon Ball is based in (Wuxia). For a lot of people in the West, Dragon Ball Z, without them even knowing, was their first exposure to this kind of narrative.

Much like how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the first Wuxia film for a lot casual movie goers, and it captivated audiences and critics not just from being from the Wuxia genre, but also serving a damn good example of the storytelling, spectacle and unique aesthetic you could get from the genre. Dragon Ball is the same boat.

Even when the heavy homages to Journey Of The West were being phased out, Dragon Ball still took a hell of a lot of elements from the Wuxia genre, other Kung-fu movies and martial arts stories that young boys in Japan weren't exposed to.

[ABED]

Dragon Ball's success is owed to how big it became with the first generation of fans in Japan. That success carried Dragon Ball to other parts of the world. I mean, FUNimation was founded as company just so that Toei could sell the licensing rights in America.

Point is that Dragon Ball has been a success around the world with audiences that have vastly different experiences with certain genres. You might want to think what elements appeal across cultures and time.

First through the door does not equal success. It can help but not always. In fact if it's so different, mainstream audiences probably aren't ready for it. Despite its uniqueness, it was also a very simple story with VERY understandable goals. People understand fighting. Lots of anime and manga were different than anything American audiences had ever seen. What is it about Dragon Ball that appealed to us?

Even when the heavy homages to Journey Of The West were being phased out, Dragon Ball still took a hell of a lot of elements from the Wuxia genre, other Kung-fu movies and martial arts stories that young boys in Japan weren't exposed to.

Not specific stories, but it was as ubiquitous as superhero stories here. Not everyone loves superheroes but everyone knows who Batman and Superman are as well as the members of their supporting cast and their backstories. And I don't buy that the kids Toriyama's story were aimed at weren't somewhat familiar with those kung fu movies.

And just so it's clear, martial arts by themselves weren't the draw. It's the characters who were martial artists that were the appeal. These elements aren't hermetically sealed.

[goku the krump dancer]

It isnt just wuxia though, there're heavy sci-fi elements involved in Dragon Ball's world and characters like Bulma represent that to a TEE and she was arguably the secondary main character until Gohan and Vegeta came along and even then she was always a strong number 3 for the most part.

The pure Wuxia/Xianxia stuff is super niche when you talk about global popularity, there's a reason why so little of it sees the light of day outside of China. If Dragon Ball's biggest attraction was the Chinese influences then one would think that China would be more comfortable experimenting with their own comic book heroes outside of the country.

[Lord Beerus]

Point is that Dragon Ball has been a success around the world with audiences that have vastly different experiences with certain genres. You might want to think what elements appeal across cultures and time.

First through the door does not equal success. It can help but not always. In fact if it's so different, mainstream audiences probably aren't ready for it. Despite its uniqueness, it was also a very simple story with VERY understandable goals. People understand fighting. Lots of anime and manga were different than anything American audiences had ever seen. What is it about Dragon Ball that appealed to us?

Dragon Ball's appeal was taking the narrative tropes, character archetypes and unique aesthetic of epic martial arts adventure stories and other kung-fu movies, and re-purposing and repackaging them into a simple story to a young audience who weren't aware of the inspirations Dragon Ball took to make that story in the first place, nonetheless even knowing about the existence of the genre for which Dragon Ball was heavily influenced from in general.

Not specific stories, but it was as ubiquitous as superhero stories here. Not everyone loves superheroes but everyone knows who Batman and Superman are as well as the members of their supporting cast and their backstories. And I don't buy that the kids Toriyama's story were aimed at weren't somewhat familiar with those kung fu movies.

I can personally speak from experience when I first watched Dragon Ball Z, it was unlike any other animated show I ever watched and kept watching it out of intrigue. The aesthetic of Dragon Ball Z alone is not like what you would see in Superhero comic book or animated show. For example, if you were watching Superman: The Animated Series and the changed the channel to Dragon Ball, just from the presentation, would you really think those two shows belong in the some wheelhouse?

Hong Kong action cinema, Toriyama's main inspiration for making Dragon Ball a martial arts manga, had an audience in Japan but most of what Toriyama took as inspiration when it came to crafting the story came from films that were fairly obscure in Japan, especially to Dragon Ball's demographic.

[ABED]

Exactly, it's not about the damn tropes, it is and will always be about story. That's what keeps people coming back for more.

I can personally speak from experience when I first watched Dragon Ball Z

YOUR experience. I can speak from mine. No amount of cool art will keep audience enthralled for hundreds of episodes and decades. You don't need to know the tropes or the genre for DB to hold any appeal. It's the simplicity of the story and likability of the characters. Playing with tropes is fun for the audience but it's not the draw. It's the things that people emotionally invest in that draw audiences even if that emotion is "Fuck yeah!"

Please for the love of god, don't lose the forest from the trees. I know you have a hard time with that.

[JulieYBM]

The Evil Dragons is probably one of the most original concepts that Toei ever did with Dragon Ball. With that being said, I can’t imagine it being revisited for the foreseeable future. Sure, we got to see Toriyama’s take on Broly, but the Evil Dragons aren’t nearly as popular. I think we’d be more likely to see Cooler before that.

Maekawa Atsushi actually details a lot of his ideology behind writing Dragon Ball GT here. There's some really good gems about just how he approached character development, too.