Xeno Goku Black wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:31 pm
Not sure who you are apologizing too seeing as nobody here was involved in the making of the arc....
A lot of people enjoy Super, even though I don't very much, so I try to remember to be courteous about that.
Xeno Goku Black wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:31 pm
But every arc in Dragon Ball Super has been bad. In fact between Super, Heroes and GT, there hasn't actually been a good arc in Dragon Ball since the Kid Buu one.
Eh. BOG was okay. U6 tournament was okay. Most of the anime filler/breather stuff ranges from good to great. Black arc had some good parts, and probably would have been a pretty solid thing in general if the ending hadn't sucked.
Personally, I'd argue Evil Dragons was pretty good, but I get that that's controversial. Reframing this a little to "Unreservedly good", which is something I'd say about almost all of DB and Z's arcs... I'd say we haven't had one that's unreservedly good since Namek.
superfan2024 wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:40 pm
Zamasu Arc was pretty good until the last few episodes.
Even before the end, the arc was a bit slow and messy, Trunks being on the level he's on makes no sense, Beers and Whis are clunkily handled, the Mafuba is made far less interesting and ultimately wasted, Vegetto is similarly wasted, and "Evil Goku" is an inherently stupid concept that ultimately amounted to nothing in the story; it would be a far less convoluted version of the same story if you take out the "Who is Black?" mystery entirely, have it be Zamas from the word go, and have the messing around about that in the present more revolve around the gang wanting to deal with him in their timeline, which Beers kindly does when they realise his ill intentions. But then of course, you don't get Evil Goku or a new colour of hair for Saiyans... -_-
It was an underdeveloped, fanfic-y mess. It played with some fun concepts and had some engaging characters, but even if you ignore the ending (a big thing to ignore, since it's a masterclass in how not to end anything ever, but the journey is more important than the destination, so we can put it aside...), the arc is only okay. It's on the same tier as Super #17 IMO -- it's fanfic-y, stupid, needless, and self-indulgent as all hell, but it's an enjoyable ride.
goku the krump dancer wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 1:09 pm
Robo4900 wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:59 am"I AM BAD MAN WHO DOES BAD THINGS."
Zamasu and MAYBE Freeza aside, which Dragon Ball Villain wasn't like that?
I mean, Freeza IS like that. But it works, because that arc doesn't need anything deeper. The Freeza arc isn't about Freeza, it's about Namek, it's about Vegeta, it's about the struggle for the balls between three factions, it's about Kuririn, Gohan, and Bulma being hopelessly overpowered in this crazy situation, it's about Goku continuing his journey into his Saiyan heritage, etc. Freeza is arguably the least-interesting thing going on in that story, he just needs to be a big, moustache-twirler we can root against. The final boss that the heroes fight at the end after dealing with all the henchmen and at the end of their character arcs in the main story. So, he is that, and it works very well.
The criticism "This villain isn't deep or substantive enough" will always depend on the story, is my view. And for this story, you need something deeper than "HAHA I AM BAD!!" for similar reasons that Avengers: Infinity War wouldn't have worked if Thanos had just been a moustache-twirling "HAHA I AM BAD" character (seriously, imagine if Thanos was literally just Freeza but big and purple, and you'll see the problem. And yet, Freeza works great in the Namek arc, because we didn't need a particularly deep villain to act as that arc's "final boss").
The Moro arc is not like the Freeza arc, however. It's more like the Saiyan arc, or the 22nd Tenkaichi; it's VERY heavily about the central villain, so you need that villain to be a really solid character. In the Saiyan arc, we had Vegeta, a character many prefer over the other far-longer-reigning mainstays like Goku (granted, a lot of his depth wouldn't be explored until later, but I'd argue even in the Saiyan arc, he was a fleshed-out character with an arc of his own; he's the prideful prince who's never met a difficult challenge before, and he has to confront this nobody from nowhere who's challenging him, and he gets thwarted at every turn, until he's an incoherent pile of flesh on the ground, crawling back home with his tail between his legs... If he still had a tail!), and in the 22nd Tenkaichi, we had Tenshinhan, who was kinda the prototype for all the villains-turned-heroes in the franchise, and arguably executed far better than any of those other turns; in just 20 half-hour episodes, he goes from one of the most contemptable characters in the anime to one of the gang.
Meanwhile, unlike Vegeta and Tenshinhan, Moro's arc that heavily revolves around him as a character, has nothing to work with, because Moro is dull as fuck as a character. He has no motivation, philosophy, or ideal beyond evil for the sake of evil. There's hints that there's a Thanos-type depth to him, but aside from the odd nod in that direction (and implying depth =/= depth, fwiw. You have to actually explore it. This isn't J.K. Rowling land where you can just say "Oh, there's a lot of depth here, it's just not in the story, but it's there!!", that's not gonna cut it here).
goku the krump dancer wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 1:09 pm
I ask because we can go over a list of who our favorite villains are in the series and for what ever reasons we have for liking said villain, "Motive" isn't at the forefront since most of em are just bad dudes who like to flex their muscles because they can. Which isn't a bad thing, because whats most important is how a villain acts around the other characters and not so much why he's after what he/she is after.
Motive isn't all there is to a character. Tenshinhan did have a motive in the 22nd Tenkaichi, to avenge his hero, Tao, but his motive isn't why he's interesting (you can have a great motive and still be a shit character; see Baby), he's interesting because he's a multidimensional character who goes through an emotional journey in the story, and through that journey, we gain insight into who he is, which is what makes him a deep character (again, people who live in J.K. Rowling land will often say "well this character has a lot of depth! you just don't see it in this story!", but again, if that depth isn't explored in the story in question, then it doesn't exist in that story).
Moro has no journey, he's just a bad man doing his bad thing until the goodguys stop him and he dies or something. We see no insight into him beyond "he am bad boy"
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.