“There is nothing to learn from Dragon Ball,” says Akira Toriyama’s editor, Kazuhiko Torishima

[Sadala Elite]

The more I look back, the more I hate the Majin Vegeta storyline. It's just such a bland way to handle Vegeta considering he's supposedly changed over the years, and then his murders are pretty much just swept under the rug again. Really boring.

You must obviously be childless nor don't know any parents of your age range if you think settling down and starting a family morally changes you.

And no, his murders at the tournament WEREN'T swepted under a rug. He is immediately chastised for it by Goku and the others, is a major reason for him deciding to make the sacrifice against Buu, and Bulma especially takes it apon herself to bring those people back with the Dragonballs.

It's fiction. I'm being critical of it as fiction. It's a storyline where Vegeta just go back to his peaceful life afterwards. It's a fault of Toriyama's lack of planning.

Also, I know plenty of parents my age. None of them are genocidal maniacs.

Sadly, I can't have kids. Thanks for reminding me I'll never have a cute child call me 'mommy'.

Most genocidal maniacs have children and families (like you know who).

He goes back into his peaceful life afterwards because he no longer have any reason or incentive to continue being evil after the Buu arc. Your arguments make no logical sense.

[Izanagi]

Your statements have nothing to do with what was said and shows fragile feelings. I don't care if Vegeta's shift to the dark side made sense to you or not, because I feel we are derailing from the topic established in the original post and our opinions are unlikely to change anytime soon.

DB is the last series I would ever turn to if I wanted a series with good character writing. Otherwise I'd watch Fullmetal Alchemist where character development actually pays off and there's an overarching theme around certain characters. With DB, Toriyama doesn't know what to do with characters such as Gohan so he keeps flip-flopping between goals, constantly making the same mistakes and repeating the same arc ad nauseum. I just watch it to see Goku crush his adversaries like bugs as he becomes even more powerful.

[ABED]

What was due to lack of planning?

As for FMA, it's not great writing. It's very boring and from what I recall they don't really grow. I don't know because I couldn't get 1/4 of the way through because it's boring so the writing can't be that good.

[Sadala Elite]

- 1st of all, getting mad at Cell for killing Trunks isn't really a sign of turning good (evil folks can feel family ties too),

but in this case it was a sign of change. Earlier in the arc when Bulma and baby Trunks were almost killed, he did nothing and didn't react. Clearly something has changed within him. Then he told Gohan he was sorry when his arm got shattered protecting him.

A personality change, not necessarily a moral one.

Villanious characters in the series also tend to angrily react when their relatives are killed (King Cold, Ma Jr., Future 17, etc).

[ABED]

- 1st of all, getting mad at Cell for killing Trunks isn't really a sign of turning good (evil folks can feel family ties too),

but in this case it was a sign of change. Earlier in the arc when Bulma and baby Trunks were almost killed, he did nothing and didn't react. Clearly something has changed within him. Then he told Gohan he was sorry when his arm got shattered protecting him.

A personality change, not necessarily a moral one.

Villanious characters in the series also tend to angrily react when their relatives are killed (King Cold, Ma Jr., Future 17, etc).

It shows growth on his part and that he cares. He's not a complete psychopath. He takes gradual steps along the way.

And again, he starts off not caring. If you think the point Toriyama was making was that he's still the villain but he's reacting angrily to the death of his son, you miss the point. Vegeta is changing.

[Sadala Elite]

Your statements have nothing to do with what was said and shows fragile feelings. I don't care if Vegeta's shift to the dark side made sense to you or not, because I feel we are derailing from the topic established in the original post and our opinions are unlikely to change anytime soon.

DB is the last series I would ever turn to if I wanted a series with good character writing. Otherwise I'd watch Fullmetal Alchemist where character development actually pays off and there's an overarching theme around certain characters. With DB, Toriyama doesn't know what to do with characters such as Gohan so he keeps flip-flopping between goals, constantly making the same mistakes and repeating the same arc ad nauseum. I just watch it to see Goku crush his adversaries like bugs as he becomes even more powerful.

"Your statements have nothing to do with what was said and shows fragile feelings"

Projecting much lmao?

My posts addressed every single claim you made in this thread, you are being in denial and willfully ignorant of everyone who responded to you.

[Sadala Elite]

but in this case it was a sign of change. Earlier in the arc when Bulma and baby Trunks were almost killed, he did nothing and didn't react. Clearly something has changed within him. Then he told Gohan he was sorry when his arm got shattered protecting him.

A personality change, not necessarily a moral one.

Villanious characters in the series also tend to angrily react when their relatives are killed (King Cold, Ma Jr., Future 17, etc).

It shows growth on his part and that he cares. He's not a complete psychopath. He takes gradual steps along the way.

And again, he starts off not caring. If you think the point Toriyama was making was that he's still the villain but he's reacting angrily to the death of his son, you miss the point. Vegeta is changing.

Yes, nobody denied any of that. The point I was refuting was the false notion that Vegeta had already 100% reformed during the 7 year gap and the even more false notion that the Majin Vegeta plotline was somehow out of character.

[ABED]

Who's claiming he did? He's in the process of changing but he's not there yet.

[Sadala Elite]

Who's claiming he did? He's in the process of changing but he's not there yet.

Izanagi did.

[MechaTrunks]

Bullshit.
Even if Dragon Ball didn't try to revolutionize the medium, it did it through an EXCELLENT cast of main characters (the writing of characters like future/present Trunks), a not "in your face" story-telling full of subtleties and making the most coherent fights in terms of BP (from the saiyan saga onwards).

There's a lot to learn from Dragon Ball still today.

[jjgp1112]

Also the thing people misunderstand with Vegeta (I blame those wretched filler episodes late in the Frieza saga) is he's not a cartoon supervillian with megalomaniacal desires whose just constantly looking to do bad shit. He's a misanthropic sociopath. He's violent and will stop at nothing when he wants something but after all of the shit with Frieza was over, his only goal was surpassing Goku. He can be settled down, calm and well-behaved, but still have evil within him. Just because he had a circle of people he was close to and cared for doesn't mean he was now a good person.

Suffice to say, I think Vegeta is the most well-written and nuanced character in Dragon Ball.

[Yuli Ban]

There's nothing to learn from 80s macho action movies either. There's nothing to really learn from the original Star Wars trilogy since we've seen that story before. Doesn't mean it isn't fun to examine them as a fan. Though I do agree that one must learn to let go of your love to really appreciate it or find its real flaws.

[DestructoDisc]

I have been watching Dragon Ball since i was 6, and the only thing I learned from it is.. nothing. I watched it for the cool fights, likeable characters, and because it was a cartoon, and at the time I loved everything that was animated. I never learned anything from animated shows, and I wasn't watching them to learn stuff (there's school for that), I was watching them to laugh and be entertained by the flashy colors.

[jjgp1112]

Yeah to keep it real I think I've "learned" more from a One Piece or Yu Yu Hakusho than anything from Dragon Ball.

[Robo4900]

Of the main team, we have a bunch of aliens (Piccolo, Goku, Vegeta), a guy with three eyes and his best friend who's some kind of weird animate doll or something.
So, don't judge people by where they came from, or what colour their skin is.

We also have a girl with no fighting ability, and there are several characters who get left in the dust fighting strength wise, yet all these people stay in the main group; everyone in a friends group has some value they bring, even if it's not always immediately obvious.

Tenshinhan, Piccolo, and Vegeta all started out as evil bastards; no one is past any point of no return in terms of being able to be a good person, they just have to start by making the right choices. It's never too late.

Goku goes through his life being friendly and kind to absolutely everyone he meets, doing good wherever he can, and ends up having a massive number of friends who would give their lives for him (and many of them did)... Kindness and acts of good will get you a lot of places in life.

There's standard shonen stuff about there being nothing in the world quite like a friend too.
Dragon Ball's lessons don't tend to be deep social commentary, but particularly for young kids, there's some good morals behind it.

[Matches Malone]

I never learned anything from animated shows, and I wasn't watching them to learn stuff, I was watching them to laugh and be entertained by the flashy colors.

This right here summarizes exactly why animation has a bad reputation of just being mindless entertainment in certain countries compared to other forms of entertainment. If you've never learned anything from DB or any other animated show, then you're either trying very hard not to, or are being distracted with other things while watching.

[DestructoDisc]

I never learned anything from animated shows, and I wasn't watching them to learn stuff, I was watching them to laugh and be entertained by the flashy colors.

This right here summarizes exactly why animation has a bad reputation of just being mindless entertainment in certain countries compared to other forms of entertainment. If you've never learned anything from DB or any other animated show, then you're either trying very hard not to, or are being distracted with other things while watching.

I'm sorry but I really didn't learn anything from DB or any other animated series, and I was pretty much stuck to my TV screen for hours ever since I got cable when I was 6. I already knew stuff like stealing is wrong, lying and swearing is bad, friendship is important, etc. I guess they helped my vocabulary a bit but that's it. I learned everything else from my parents, siblings, friends and teachers.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Most people interpreted “learn anything” in the sense of “about human nature”, which in a work of fantasy is ... interesting to say the least. I always saw the point of fantasy being to take the real world, blend it with historical/mythological elements (and whatever else the author can come up with) to create something that allows us to see how, for lack of a better term, “constructed” our world is. For example, what if history had turned out differently? What if we had inventions that we don’t have or didn’t have ones that we do? Or even, what if people actually had magical powers? Would there be a class of people who used them for evil, or would those who had them pursue equality etc etc?


Whether DB does any of this well I don’t really feel like getting into right now TBH, but I just had to give my two cents on what I think the “point” of something like Dragon Ball might be.

[Adamant]

There's nothing to really learn from the original Star Wars trilogy since we've seen that story before.

"If you don't shoot first, the other guy may do so"

[Soppa Saia People]

i'm like a week late to this, and to be honest he's not wrong, but i will say i do think it's kinda ironic to hear torishima just think it's a dumb manga, when in his Forbes interview he said he was displeased with the dragon ball anime because they weren't taking it seriously enough. obviously there's some difference, and having people recall their exact feelings on things 30+ years ago is bound to result in some contradictions (part of why i don't really put a ton of stock in toriyama interviews as fun and interesting as they are to read), but just thought it was funny.