"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Kagari]

Can I ask everyone something? While Goku and Vegeta will no doubt be getting stronger and fighting bigger threats, I feel like they shouldn't be leaving B+ fighters behind, like Gohan and the androids. I don't want Goku and Vegeta to be handling all these new upcoming threats, no doubt going to be God Of Destruction tier or close enough to where they are worthy opponents, and just have the rest of Earth's fighters constantly getting their faces shoved into the ground trying to fend these monsters off.

I don't want them to get in the habit of waiting on Goku and Vegeta to join the fray, while Gohan and co are getting tossed into buildings trying to defend their planet. I feel like they need to give them a bit of a boost in the future, because Empowered Saganbo was legit wrecking them and forcing them on the defensive. They can't just keep relying on Goku and Vegeta to show up, seeing as that can take ages. I'd rather Gohan and the others like 17,18 and maybe Piccolo to have a boost so they don't end up getting tossed into the dirt.

I mean, they gave characters like 17 and Gohan huge boosts for the Universe Survival arc so they could be relevant. The only limitation is the imagination of the writers.

Still, I'd rather the writers not keep relying on Goku and Vegeta to rush on the scene. Usually they have the same old "Wait for the heavy hitters to arrive as we get curbstomped by the new enemies."

It gets old and I'd rather we not have to constantly have it be a waiting game of "Where the hell are Goku and Vegeta because we are getting kicked into the dirt!? Can someone help us cause half of us are on the verge of death!?"

I feel like people overstate the reliance on "Goku and Vegeta" post RoF. Especially when you consider Super's longest arc in the anime, the Universe Survival arc, takes up nearly half the series and features good roles for most of the cast on top of power boosts for some of them. Heck, the whole "wait for the hero" trope so present in the original series is barely a thing in Super. And more often than not, the conclusions to these conflicts has been something solved without "the strongest guy".

[The Undying]

The problem is when you always do what fans don't want, that in itself becomes predictable.

That's definitely true. I really don't envy Toyotaro for being caught between a rock and a hard place here - he can subvert expectations, but at what cost? Toriyama skirted them in so many ways already that I can't see a ton of new/refreshing avenues left for conflict resolution, but I'm hoping for some kind of interesting spin on this at least.

I don't want the whole arc to end up feeling like DBZ Movie 9. That film not only went out of its way to be as fanservicey as possible, it did it without any character progression whatsoever and pushed one of the most obnoxiously straightforward wins I've ever seen in Toei's Dragon Ball. That, in my mind, is the greater of two evils.

[Dragon Wukong]

I mean, they gave characters like 17 and Gohan huge boosts for the Universe Survival arc so they could be relevant. The only limitation is the imagination of the writers.

Still, I'd rather the writers not keep relying on Goku and Vegeta to rush on the scene. Usually they have the same old "Wait for the heavy hitters to arrive as we get curbstomped by the new enemies."

It gets old and I'd rather we not have to constantly have it be a waiting game of "Where the hell are Goku and Vegeta because we are getting kicked into the dirt!? Can someone help us cause half of us are on the verge of death!?"

I feel like people overstate the reliance on "Goku and Vegeta" post RoF. Especially when you consider Super's longest arc in the anime, the Universe Survival arc, takes up nearly half the series and features good roles for most of the cast on top of power boosts for some of them. Heck, the whole "wait for the hero" trope so present in the original series is barely a thing in Super. And more often than not, the conclusions to these conflicts has been something solved without "the strongest guy".

Keeping in mind this is a manga thread, every arc of DBS besides the ToP has generally kept that reliance on Goku and Vegeta.

[Kagari]

Still, I'd rather the writers not keep relying on Goku and Vegeta to rush on the scene. Usually they have the same old "Wait for the heavy hitters to arrive as we get curbstomped by the new enemies."

It gets old and I'd rather we not have to constantly have it be a waiting game of "Where the hell are Goku and Vegeta because we are getting kicked into the dirt!? Can someone help us cause half of us are on the verge of death!?"

I feel like people overstate the reliance on "Goku and Vegeta" post RoF. Especially when you consider Super's longest arc in the anime, the Universe Survival arc, takes up nearly half the series and features good roles for most of the cast on top of power boosts for some of them. Heck, the whole "wait for the hero" trope so present in the original series is barely a thing in Super. And more often than not, the conclusions to these conflicts has been something solved without "the strongest guy".

Keeping in mind this is a manga thread, every arc of DBS besides the ToP has generally kept that reliance on Goku and Vegeta.

Goku is barely a character in the manga, often shoved to the side until the final fight where he has no chemistry with anyone...

[Dragon Wukong]

I feel like people overstate the reliance on "Goku and Vegeta" post RoF. Especially when you consider Super's longest arc in the anime, the Universe Survival arc, takes up nearly half the series and features good roles for most of the cast on top of power boosts for some of them. Heck, the whole "wait for the hero" trope so present in the original series is barely a thing in Super. And more often than not, the conclusions to these conflicts has been something solved without "the strongest guy".

Keeping in mind this is a manga thread, every arc of DBS besides the ToP has generally kept that reliance on Goku and Vegeta.

Goku is barely a character in the manga, often shoved to the side until the final fight where he has no chemistry with anyone...

Regardless of that opinion, Buu is shoved out of the U6 tournament, Piccolo is tossed aside even though his fight was lost via rigging. The ENTIRE basis of the Future Trunks arc is that he has to rely on Goku and Vegeta to help him get the job done. Even Tori wrote the final fight to originally be between Goku and Fused Zamasu. The fact Zeno is ultimately the one who finishes off Zamasu or that Monaka beats Hit (as a joke) is irrelevant to how much Goku and Vegeta are relied on still throughout Super compared to other characters.

I'm not exactly sure how Goku as a character or chemistry between others is relevant to that, actually. The plot makes it so he's relied upon regardless.

[Kagari]

Keeping in mind this is a manga thread, every arc of DBS besides the ToP has generally kept that reliance on Goku and Vegeta.

Goku is barely a character in the manga, often shoved to the side until the final fight where he has no chemistry with anyone...

Regardless of that opinion, Buu is shoved out of the U6 tournament, Piccolo is tossed aside even though his fight was lost via rigging. The ENTIRE basis of the Future Trunks arc is that he has to rely on Goku and Vegeta to help him get the job done. Even Tori wrote the final fight to originally be between Goku and Fused Zamasu. The fact Zeno is ultimately the one who finishes off Zamasu or that Monaka beats Hit (as a joke) is irrelevant to how much Goku and Vegeta are relied on still throughout Super compared to other characters.

I'm not exactly sure how Goku as a character or chemistry between others is relevant to that, actually. The plot makes it so he's relied upon regardless.

If anything that illustrates one of the core problems of the manga. If the anime can focus on other characters/their development, such as Trunks in his own arc (who specifically learns *not* to rely on others), then it could have easily been done in the manga too. As it is, if fans want to see those characters, they have to look outside of this manga.

[Lionel]

Besides the fleeting yet utterly essential surprise acts of Goku's group like Tenshinhan rescuing the young Saiyan from Piccolo Daimou's Bakurikimaha or Piccolo saving Goku from Freeza's execution attack, the main event is usually relegated to just Goku (or Gohan in the case of the Cell arc) -- the Saiyan arc being a noteworthy exception. Super has actually made some inroads by having others like Vegeta, Future Trunks, Freeza, and #17 involved.

I think what many of us would like to see is some kind of overarching permanency to the involvement of these other characters. We'd like for them to have progressional journeys of their own similar to what Vegeta has gotten. Is it likely to happen? Of course not. Toyotaro/Toriyama seem content with maintaining the Goku/Vegeta duopoly with the occasional fight involving the B-list group against a lowly subordinate.

[Dragon Wukong]

Regardless of that opinion, Buu is shoved out of the U6 tournament, Piccolo is tossed aside even though his fight was lost via rigging. The ENTIRE basis of the Future Trunks arc is that he has to rely on Goku and Vegeta to help him get the job done. Even Tori wrote the final fight to originally be between Goku and Fused Zamasu. The fact Zeno is ultimately the one who finishes off Zamasu or that Monaka beats Hit (as a joke) is irrelevant to how much Goku and Vegeta are relied on still throughout Super compared to other characters.

I'm not exactly sure how Goku as a character or chemistry between others is relevant to that, actually. The plot makes it so he's relied upon regardless.

If anything that illustrates one of the core problems of the manga. If the anime can focus on other characters/their development, such as Trunks in his own arc (who specifically learns *not* to rely on others), then it could have easily been done in the manga too. As it is, if fans want to see those characters, they have to look outside of this manga.

Fair enough, however, even if you only look toward to the anime the issue rears its head a bit. Piccolo in the U6 tournament still gets shafted the same way, and in the ToP a lot of the tournament does end up being most of the fighters lining up to fight against Goku or Vegeta, with the others getting their own one-off episode of focus (which is pretty good, but they were still just one-offs against the fight of the week.) Android 17 and Frieza got their spotlight in the end, but that basically served as their return to the series proper, ala Trunks in his own arc. Gohan and Piccolo still get shafted out, bearing no real importance toward the final fight despite their seemingly newfound strength. Not to mention Buu being put on the coma bus.

The message seems to be something along the lines of, if you want to be relevant in the end, you better be a "guest star" cast member. Otherwise you better be Goku or Vegeta.

[Matches Malone]

I feel killing Merus off would be a waste of potensial, seeing as this could easily be writing material for future arcs.

I get the impression from Merus that he's here to more or less die. He just doesn't come off as someone written to stay around. This arc definitely has a "this is a one time" feel to it. Goku's training didn't work so he won't use UI this way again, Vegeta won't use IT again and Merus will save the day but never be seen again. When it comes to Vegeta's move, it seems very specific for this kind of villain, which we'll never get again, resulting in him never using this technique again. Another thing this happened with was Buu, he could switch to the fat Kai from back in the day, but now he's asleep, and if he doesn't take part in this battle, may never switch back and forth again.

Where do you see the Manga going after Moro? Could it stop? Could we get a new Arc? Will it be irrelevant to the Moro arc?

I think we'll definitely get a new arc announced and started this December at Jump Festa, which is why I think this arc will last until then. In terms of its relevance to the current arc, I don't think it will be, as things will probably be tied up here at the end.

Dragon ball is at its best when it's doing things the fans DON'T want. The problem is when you always do what fans don't want, that in itself becomes predictable.

I don't have an issue with my expectation not being met as much as what they're doing not being good.

When Goku lost to Beerus, that was a pleasant surprise, as it was handled wonderfully, and up to that point Goku beat every movie villain he came across.

Goku and Freeza teaming up to take down Jiren with 17 winning the tournament was a great way to end things on. It's the kind of thing you don't know you wanted until you got it.

Gogeta taking on Broly in the end was great. It was nothing we didn't predict, but it was great to see, so no harm done.

Turning Freeza into a push over wasn't a good surprise, as they turned one of the story's greatest villains into a pushover. The ending just made things worse, as despite having to rely on petty tricks to win, he still lost.

Having tournament "rules" preventing Hit from going all out was just as bad as the above, as the build up to his and Goku's fight had no payoff at the end. It was unexpected, but it was also bad writing.

Everything starting with Zamasu and Black fusing just got worse until it reached that godawful ending.

Super's endings have been 50/50, as seen above, so however this arc ends will tip the scale one way or the other.

[Kagari]

Besides the fleeting yet utterly essential surprise acts of Goku's group like Tenshinhan rescuing the young Saiyan from Piccolo Daimou's Bakurikimaha or Piccolo saving Goku from Freeza's execution attack, the main event is usually relegated to just Goku (or Gohan in the case of the Cell arc) -- the Saiyan arc being a noteworthy exception. Super has actually made some inroads by having others like Vegeta, Future Trunks, Freeza, and #17 involved.

I think what many of us would like to see is some kind of overarching permanency to the involvement of these other characters. We'd like for them to have progressional journeys of their own similar to what Vegeta has gotten. Is it likely to happen? Of course not. Toyotaro/Toriyama seem content with maintaining the Goku/Vegeta duopoly with the occasional fight involving the B-list group against a lowly subordinate.

This is actually why I really like what the anime Universe Survival did in first half of it (and episodes immediately following the Trunks arc), which was to sideline Vegeta and let Gohan take the role of Goku's sidekick. More of that and Goku interacting with his friends/family would breathe in some fresh air.

[Mad Swami]

Besides the fleeting yet utterly essential surprise acts of Goku's group like Tenshinhan rescuing the young Saiyan from Piccolo Daimou's Bakurikimaha or Piccolo saving Goku from Freeza's execution attack, the main event is usually relegated to just Goku (or Gohan in the case of the Cell arc) -- the Saiyan arc being a noteworthy exception. Super has actually made some inroads by having others like Vegeta, Future Trunks, Freeza, and #17 involved.

I think what many of us would like to see is some kind of overarching permanency to the involvement of these other characters. We'd like for them to have progressional journeys of their own similar to what Vegeta has gotten. Is it likely to happen? Of course not. Toyotaro/Toriyama seem content with maintaining the Goku/Vegeta duopoly with the occasional fight involving the B-list group against a lowly subordinate.

This is actually why I really like what the anime Universe Survival did in first half of it (and episodes immediately following the Trunks arc), which was to sideline Vegeta and let Gohan take the role of Goku's sidekick. More of that and Goku interacting with his friends/family would breathe in some fresh air.

The first half was pretty good but I kind of wish Gohan was in charge of recruitment

[Kagari]

Besides the fleeting yet utterly essential surprise acts of Goku's group like Tenshinhan rescuing the young Saiyan from Piccolo Daimou's Bakurikimaha or Piccolo saving Goku from Freeza's execution attack, the main event is usually relegated to just Goku (or Gohan in the case of the Cell arc) -- the Saiyan arc being a noteworthy exception. Super has actually made some inroads by having others like Vegeta, Future Trunks, Freeza, and #17 involved.

I think what many of us would like to see is some kind of overarching permanency to the involvement of these other characters. We'd like for them to have progressional journeys of their own similar to what Vegeta has gotten. Is it likely to happen? Of course not. Toyotaro/Toriyama seem content with maintaining the Goku/Vegeta duopoly with the occasional fight involving the B-list group against a lowly subordinate.

This is actually why I really like what the anime Universe Survival did in first half of it (and episodes immediately following the Trunks arc), which was to sideline Vegeta and let Gohan take the role of Goku's sidekick. More of that and Goku interacting with his friends/family would breathe in some fresh air.

The first half was pretty good but I kind of wish Gohan was in charge of recruitment

Er, he helped suggest the team along with Goku and tested Kuririn specifically.

[Mad Swami]

This is actually why I really like what the anime Universe Survival did in first half of it (and episodes immediately following the Trunks arc), which was to sideline Vegeta and let Gohan take the role of Goku's sidekick. More of that and Goku interacting with his friends/family would breathe in some fresh air.

The first half was pretty good but I kind of wish Gohan was in charge of recruitment

Er, he helped suggest the team along with Goku.

Yeah but I think he should be more of the leading force. Personally I think Goku's only suggestion should be Frieza

[Kagari]

The first half was pretty good but I kind of wish Gohan was in charge of recruitment

Er, he helped suggest the team along with Goku.

Yeah but I think he should be more of the leading force. Personally I think Goku's only suggestion should be Frieza

He was, go back and watch episode 83 to see how proactive he was being.

[Mad Swami]

Er, he helped suggest the team along with Goku.

Yeah but I think he should be more of the leading force. Personally I think Goku's only suggestion should be Frieza

He was, go back and watch episode 83 to see how proactive he was being.

He was pro active sure. For instance though I wish he went to grab Tien or that Roshi was his idea

[Kagari]

Yeah but I think he should be more of the leading force. Personally I think Goku's only suggestion should be Frieza

He was, go back and watch episode 83 to see how proactive he was being.

He was pro active sure. For instance though I wish he went to grab Tien or that Roshi was his idea

Roshi was his idea.

[Mad Swami]

He was, go back and watch episode 83 to see how proactive he was being.

He was pro active sure. For instance though I wish he went to grab Tien or that Roshi was his idea

Roshi was his idea.

I guess I misremembered that. My bad

[Femme Fatale Kikaza]

Honestly, can the damage Moros' done to U7 even be reversed? Like, with the normal dragon balls, I'm kinda doubting they can revive the countless of planets Moro's consumed. Moro's killed trillions of people and made their energy a part of him. I'm sure that Earth will be fine. Or at least intact by the end of the Arc.

But what about the rest of U7?

Moro has had his army of prisoners running around across the galaxy, looting treasure and raiding planet's populations while eating their energy. The quality of life has no doubt been at an all time low, might even be worse than U9 given Moro's little ventures.

I don't even understand Whis when he said that destruction is natural, as if Moro and his army rampaging across the universe and genociding entire populations should be classified as 'natural'. There is nothing natural about this.

Also, Shin aware this is happening? I know he can't do anything as he's too weak and would just get himself killed, but I doubt he's stupid enough to not notice Moro's rampage. I'm sure he simply doesn't want to kill himself, as Moro is out of his league and he's basically Beerus's weak point that talks and walks. I hope he shows up for a panel to admit something like "Damn it. Moro's been eating the remaining planets in our Universe....Only a handful left with decent life on them."

[Draconic]

I mean, they gave characters like 17 and Gohan huge boosts for the Universe Survival arc so they could be relevant. The only limitation is the imagination of the writers.

Still, I'd rather the writers not keep relying on Goku and Vegeta to rush on the scene. Usually they have the same old "Wait for the heavy hitters to arrive as we get curbstomped by the new enemies."

It gets old and I'd rather we not have to constantly have it be a waiting game of "Where the hell are Goku and Vegeta because we are getting kicked into the dirt!? Can someone help us cause half of us are on the verge of death!?"

I feel like people overstate the reliance on "Goku and Vegeta" post RoF. Especially when you consider Super's longest arc in the anime, the Universe Survival arc, takes up nearly half the series and features good roles for most of the cast on top of power boosts for some of them. Heck, the whole "wait for the hero" trope so present in the original series is barely a thing in Super. And more often than not, the conclusions to these conflicts has been something solved without "the strongest guy".

And the previous is arc is focused on Future Trunks, with Goku and Vegeta as backup.

[Matches Malone]

Shin aware this is happening? I doubt he's stupid enough to not notice Moro's rampage.

You're giving him way too much credit. You can't google the word stupid without running into Shin articles.