What would a reboot have to do in order to comply to today's standards?

[JulieYBM]

"Do Japanese people even care if their single-digit aged children watch the main character's mentor sexually assault woman or see said creep's pornographic magazines in plain view?"

Japanese people aren't fucking idiots.

[MasenkoHA]

What about the fighting in Dragon Ball? Vegito the hero bullying Super buu or is that okay because super buu was evil? so it's okay for Dragon Ball to teaches kids about revenge? and resolve conflicts with your fist?

Yeaah people who insist on using this kind of weak ass argument have no critical thinking and it’s pointless to even argue.

tHeRes fIgHtiNg iN a sHoW aBoUt fIgHtInG tHaT iS tHe sAmE tHiNg aS sExuAl aSsaUlt bEing tReAted aS liGhT hEaRtEd hUmOr

[Locust]

"Do Japanese people even care if their single-digit aged children watch the main character's mentor sexually assault woman or see said creep's pornographic magazines in plain view?"

Honestly, I watched/read Dragon Ball as a young kid - but I wouldn't let my relatives read/watch it at the same age I was

Because - I understood what Roshi was doing was wrong, without having to be explicitly taught about things like consent at that age, because being young (12 at the time) and being a little girl - I had already experienced adult men behaving inappropriately to me, even at that age

I don't want to expose children to that, I don't want to potentially have children feel the same kind of sickly "oh" feeling I did

You can have Roshi be a lil bit pervy, he can be a flirt, you can have allusions to naughty magazines without explicitly showing what said naughty mags are - you can still maintain the core personality of this char without going too far with it

[JulieYBM]

"Do Japanese people even care if their single-digit aged children watch the main character's mentor sexually assault woman or see said creep's pornographic magazines in plain view?"

Honestly, I watched/read Dragon Ball as a young kid - but I wouldn't let my relatives read/watch it at the same age I was

Because - I understood what Roshi was doing was wrong, without having to be explicitly taught about things like consent at that age, because being young (12 at the time) and being a little girl - I had already experienced adult men behaving inappropriately to me, even at that age

I don't want to expose children to that, I don't want to potentially have children feel the same kind of sickly "oh" feeling I did

You can have Roshi be a lil bit pervy, he can be a flirt, you can have allusions to naughty magazines without explicitly showing what said naughty mags are - you can still maintain the core personality of this char without going too far with it

I watched it as a kid, too, and holy shit now that I'm thirty and old enough to be a mom to someone in that age group--or even under eighteen--I want to vomit at the notion of letting my kids watch this stuff.

The Muten Roushi's shtick is just so played out, too. It'd be far more refreshing to change it so that he has a partner and the comedy is seeing the ridiculous lengths he goes to to make them happy.

[DBZfan29]

"Do Japanese people even care if their single-digit aged children watch the main character's mentor sexually assault woman or see said creep's pornographic magazines in plain view?"

Japanese people aren't fucking idiots.

Eh... sometimes I wonder. I work at a Japanese school and I've seen a few kids with Playboy jackets or pencil cases. I'm guessing they didn't buy it themselves.

[Matches Malone]

If I create something that people feel is off, the audience has every right to tell me "hey, this went too far/this was off colour/etc etc etc"

If I were to give you one advice, and one only, I'd tell you to never listen to what "fans" want. I'll go even further and advice you to not even read what anyone's saying about your work. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that "fans" and the "audience" have no clue about what they want or what they're even talking about. Once you start listening to fans and bringing their ideas into your story, it stops being your story, which is the biggest problem I have with DB post BOG.

[JulieYBM]

If I create something that people feel is off, the audience has every right to tell me "hey, this went too far/this was off colour/etc etc etc"

If I were to give you one advice, and one only, I'd tell you to never listen to what "fans" want. I'll go even further and advice you to not even read what anyone's saying about your work. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that "fans" and the "audience" have no clue about what they want or what they're even talking about. Once you start listening to fans and bringing their ideas into your story, it stops being your story, which is the biggest problem I have with DB post BOG.

You're dismissing criticism by labeling critics as 'fans' because 'fans' are 'untrustworthy' without ever actually defending the content being criticized, essentially labeling yourself untouchable. That's bullshit. We need to criticize so that we don't wind up with more D.W. Griffiths.

The issue here is that we're talking about 'mainstream' commercial art. We're not talking about fetish porn and erotica, we're talking about shit exposed to children and others expressly for the sake of common entertainment. We need to be critical of how marginalized people are depicted and what kind of content children are exposed to.

[Locust]

If I create something that people feel is off, the audience has every right to tell me "hey, this went too far/this was off colour/etc etc etc"

If I were to give you one advice, and one only, I'd tell you to never listen to what "fans" want. I'll go even further and advice you to not even read what anyone's saying about your work. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that "fans" and the "audience" have no clue about what they want or what they're even talking about. Once you start listening to fans and bringing their ideas into your story, it stops being your story, which is the biggest problem I have with DB post BOG.

Respectfully - it is impossible to not listen to what people say about your manga
Editors for example - it varies with the publication, but editors will have a bit of sway in what goes on in a manga, and ask - if not outright demand - changes

When I say I listen to fans, I didn't mean about taking their idea suggestions - I more meant, to gauge the reactions to the manga, if I'm doing anything wrong (or right!)
Critiques are great, I've been making doujinshi for quite some time, critiques have been very valuable as they've pointed out things I didn't even realise about my own work

There's worthless critiques of course, but those can just be discarded

"Do Japanese people even care if their single-digit aged children watch the main character's mentor sexually assault woman or see said creep's pornographic magazines in plain view?"

Japanese people aren't fucking idiots.

Eh... sometimes I wonder. I work at a Japanese school and I've seen a few kids with Playboy jackets or pencil cases. I'm guessing they didn't buy it themselves.

Yeah I've seen kids with playboy bunny earrings and stuff (in the west) - it's a little.... no
Presumably those parents just think "oh it's just the logo it's not harmful" - but personally I wouldn't buy a kid something like that

[Yuli Ban]

The Muten Roushi's shtick is just so played out, too. It'd be far more refreshing to change it so that he has a partner and the comedy is seeing the ridiculous lengths he goes to to make them happy.

The issue there is more that this wouldn't be Muten Roshi in that case since that is an unfortunate aspect of his character (and indeed, a major problem in Japanese society, ESPECIALLY in the 80s); you might as well just create a new character. The best way to handle it for a modern audience is to just not show the predator side of himself. Or at least make him a non-rapey Casanova always wanting to woo women without going too far. I still can't get the Saban censorship version of Muten out of my head when I say that, but only because I know that wasn't how he was written in the first place.

As for the debate about using such characters in the first place: this isn't a Martin Scorcese film, it's fucking Dragon Ball. There's no reason to have such characters if audience standards have changed; Muten's not a sexual predator for artistically challenging reasons; General Blue wasn't a gay pedophile because Toriyama was telling some high-brow story that was supposed to challenge you or because he's an auteur.
It's a goofy cartoon about 80s-fied kung fu monks and bandits punching and blasting kung fu fighting furries, demons, and aliens clad often designed as pop culture references, and its target demographic is and has always been 8 year old boys. WE technically shouldn't even be watching it; it's for the same demographic as Ed, Edd, n Eddy or Powerpuff Girls. But on that same note, if you were at the wheel, would YOU seriously make a show for 8 year olds that had these things? I know standards were different in Japan in the 1980s, but that's not fundamentally a good thing. I'm sure social standards were different in Germany in 1940 and that's why we can't criticize Jud Süß. Yes, there are people like that in the world. Yes, even in General Blue's case, there was a high level of gay men in the Nazi's SA force, so it's not technically inaccurate. That's not really the point; Blue himself is a joke. Muten's forced advances are a joke. Not treated seriously.

Another point I have:

Things aren't the way they were in 80s Japan. Kung fu movies are nowhere near as popular, and they've largely been absorbed into battle shonen in the mainstream imagination. Indeed, ask a person about a "fighting academy," and their mind probably goes to some shonenshit with emo-haired teens well, WELL before they think of Shaolin and Wudang monasteries (the more martial-oriented of which as depicted in fiction definitely COULD be conceived as "fighting academies").
Animation styles have come and gone, and it's clear that the current generation is obsessed with that overly cartoony-but-not-really squash and stretch that Super, One Piece, Naruto, and others use whenever things get even mildly frantic. It's not like Dragon Ball NEVER delved into the "ATATATATATA", but there was a definite lack of it compared to the superhuman fighting we see later in DB and then in Z. I'm just not entirely convinced they would do that; it's too cost-effective to have punch and kick loops. Would people even care these days anyway? It's all "shonen" to them, not "Shaw Brothers-styled kung fu cartoon." They could easily scrub away most of the imagery and underlying philosophies and people wouldn't care.
And Dragon Ball doesn't have that primetime TV slot either; any reboot would air in the same one that Dragon Ball Super did, further "juvenilizing" it in terms of violence, the one thing that attracted a lot of people to it. It's entirely possible we could go the entire series with only a few shots of blood or actual injuries that aren't just "character holding their arm while dirtied up." And yes: that IS something that bothers me in a show about kung fu that at least established that precedent and even made such injuries major parts of the story.
I know some people these days are wimps who can't handle blood or violence... but let's be honest here, wimps existed in the 80s too. The "grown ups watching children's shows" crowd are NOT that sensitive; they've just never gone out of their way to be exposed to it regularly, so naturally it'd be shocking at first, but within a year, their socks would be thoroughly rocked by a mainstream cartoon being that bloody.

Really, there are so many ways a reboot could go horribly wrong, with the worst being to make Dragon Ball a squeaky clean, all-righteous kung fu-themed shonen that takes up more influence from One Piece than Drunken Master.

The best way to do it would be to fix all the underlying issues and poorly aged crap from 80s Dragon Ball, give it middling-quality-movie animation and the original art style but with more colors and detail so that it looks almost like a fusion between Toriyama and traditional Chinese art (more than it already did), and double down on the original influences.
One toss-up is whether to add new details to things; characters and events that we never saw in the original run (e.g. Bonyu from Kakarot would be an interesting addition; I've always wanted to see Kurilien animated)

[Matches Malone]

When I say I listen to fans, I didn't mean about taking their idea suggestions - I more meant, to gauge the reactions to the manga, if I'm doing anything wrong (or right!). critiques have been very valuable as they've pointed out things I didn't even realize about my own work.

I agree that there is criticism worth taking into account, it's just far and few between. I personally think you have to be very careful about what you listen to, as a good number of people are reading your work for what you have to say, and "critics" a lot of times are just trying to get their own ideas into your work.

You're dismissing criticism by labeling critics as 'fans' because 'fans' are 'untrustworthy' without ever actually defending the content being criticized, essentially labeling yourself untouchable. That's bullshit.

We need to be critical of how marginalized people are depicted and what kind of content children are exposed to.

If I was a creator, then yes, my work would be untouchable, as I wouldn't let anyone put their finger print on it. I'd tell critics to simply find other content to enjoy if mine wasn't something they liked, especially if they were as antagonistic as you are.

You have to be able to differentiate between those groups being written badly, and not being written how you want. When it comes to "children", that's on their irresponsible parents, not the creators.

[Locust]

You have to be able to differentiate between those groups being written badly, and not being written how you want. When it comes to "children", that's on their irresponsible parents, not the creators.

While parents have some level of responsibility to know what content their kids are consuming - you can hardly blame them for letting them read/watch something specifically geared to their young age group, and then being angered when there's content that is most assuredly NOT child-friendly in it that appears unexpectedly
I'm mainly thinking about that one Super episode with Roshi, I understand that the 80s was a different time, but this is a modern production

Content creators aren't absolved, when they make content for children and then put things that children shouldn't see in it - that's just not a good thing

Now, me? I make manga for the seinen demographic, for adult men. There's quite a lot of extreme gore in my manga. If a parent let a child read my work and then complained to me about their kid being upset - I'd get irritated cause my work ISN'T for kids and holy shit, don't let your kids read my work

But Dragon Ball IS for kids - that's the core issue

[Matches Malone]

While parents have some level of responsibility to know what content their kids are consuming - you can hardly blame them for letting them read/watch something specifically geared to their young age group, and then being angered when there's content that is most assuredly NOT child-friendly in it that appears unexpectedly, I'm mainly thinking about that one Super episode with Roshi, I understand that the 80s was a different time, but this is a modern production.

I definitely agree that the Roshi episode was terrible, and makes the character look genuinely bad, unlike before where it was played for gags. Personally, I've never been a fan of the perverted old master that's in a lot of anime.

With that said, it seems like Japanese standards for what's considered appropriate for kids is vastly different than it is in the west, so parents need to take that into account before letting their kids watch anime, especially anime that airs on Adult Swim of all places.

[Locust]

With that said, it seems like Japanese standards for what's considered appropriate for kids is vastly different than it is in the west, so parents need to take that into account before letting their kids watch anime, especially anime that airs on Adult Swim of all places.

I was actually talking about a Japanese audience in these cases - I don't know a huge amount about western standards when it comes to media for children, so I wouldn't dare comment on that - just is not my place to do so

But certainly, I would assume that something like that Super episode just wouldn't fly there either - kids are kids, no matter the regions, and they shouldn't be exposed to sexual things like that

[Matches Malone]

But certainly, I would assume that something like that Super episode just wouldn't fly there either

I'm actually surprised they went that far with that one, it just seemed out of place and unnecessary.

[JulieYBM]

If I was a creator, then yes, my work would be untouchable, as I wouldn't let anyone put their finger print on it. I'd tell critics to simply find other content to enjoy if mine wasn't something they liked, especially if they were as antagonistic as you are.

You have to be able to differentiate between those groups being written badly, and not being written how you want. When it comes to "children", that's on their irresponsible parents, not the creators.

Matches Malone, everyone. Dying on the hill of "I should be able to show children pornography and trivialize minorities."

EDIT: Didn't think I could still edit this post. Anyway, this was over-the-top sarcasm that I actually original written to be more generic but made it more pointed during pre-posting editing. I don't really regret the sentiment, just the reliance on sarcasm over a more patient explanation of how ridiculous I thought the post was.

[Matches Malone]

Matches Malone, everyone. Dying on the hill of "I should be able to show children pornography and trivialize minorities."

Is this what you do to everyone who doesn't agree with you, try to spread lies about them ? If you want to be taken seriously, start acting a bit more mature than this.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Really, there are so many ways a reboot could go horribly wrong, with the worst being to make Dragon Ball a squeaky clean, all-righteous kung fu-themed shonen that takes up more influence from One Piece than Drunken Master.

One Piece IS FILLED to the brim with not only grisly violence and gore but PLENTY of sexual humor and harrasment. Right next to Dragon Ball Super in timeslot. I'M NOT saying One Piece is better for this, but you shouldnt use EASILY debunked stuff in your arguments.

[JulieYBM]

Matches Malone, everyone. Dying on the hill of "I should be able to show children pornography and trivialize minorities."

Is this what you do to everyone who doesn't agree with you, try to spread lies about them ? If you want to be taken seriously, start acting a bit more mature than this.

You've continually countered my posts criticizing Dragon Ball's practice of exposing children to that kind of content with "Creators should be allowed to do whatever and not listen to 'critics'!" What the hell else am I supposed to derive from that? Do you want to admit to moving the goal posts, then? Say you've just been fucking with me and I will 100% believe you.

Admittedly I somewhat regret using such a sarcastic turn of phrase on a text message board but Jesus Christ.

[Matches Malone]

You've continually countered my posts criticizing Dragon Ball's practice of exposing children to that kind of content with "Creators should be allowed to do whatever and not listen to 'critics'!" What the hell else am I supposed to derive from that? Do you want to admit to moving the goal posts, then? Say you've just been fucking with me and I will 100% believe you.

I'm talking about general criticisms, what you're talking about is obviously the exception to my rule, which is what I said.

"You have to be able to differentiate between those groups being written badly, and not being written how you want."

There are cases of minorities being written badly for racist purposes, unfortunately, which I'm completely against. I just think it's important to be able to identify what's being written for those purposes, and not mislabel something that isn't that as such because you wanted something else out of it.

[Yuli Ban]

Really, there are so many ways a reboot could go horribly wrong, with the worst being to make Dragon Ball a squeaky clean, all-righteous kung fu-themed shonen that takes up more influence from One Piece than Drunken Master.

One Piece IS FILLED to the brim with not only grisly violence and gore but PLENTY of sexual humor and harrasment. Right next to Dragon Ball Super in timeslot. I'M NOT saying One Piece is better for this, but you shouldnt use EASILY debunked stuff in your arguments.

Doth protest too soon
I didn't say Dragon Ball's reboot would take up from One Piece in CONTENT.
I said it would take up from One Piece in STYLE.
As in the asinine pseudo-cartoony animation direction with overdone squash and stretch, coupled with a tenuous grip on kung fu and wuxia at that. Surely the " squeaky-clean" part would've communicated the "gore and sexual harassment" part enough. If not, I apologize for being vague.
And I didn't even say it would be just like One Piece at that; more that it would follow in its footsteps (ironically, all things considering). If it actually was "just" a xuanhuan One Piece in all ways, that might even be tolerable. But I'm thinking that they'd go all in on the weakest aspects of it, as they did with Super following up Z and GT with its weakest aspects at the forefront.