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

[JulieYBM]

People are made up of their natural desires (which are not consistent between everyone) and their experiences within our flawed societies. Those create different types of creators with different types of ideas and ways of expressing ideas. That is really all I'm getting at. Basically, don't say self-congratulatory things like 'gender doesn't matter' when one's experiences (internal and external) are what drive the creation of expression through the arts.

[ABED]

You keep saying that as if DB hasn't skipped a beat since Toriyama originally ended it. It's nowhere near as good as it once was. Turning it into anything else is not the way to keep DB going. There is no way to keep it going strong. It's had its day.

I don't get it. Dragon Ball is being extremely conservative by following the same market-tested ideas as before but changing it is somehow not a good idea?

The best parts of modern Dragon Ball are the parts that Toriyama wouldn't normally do, like Gokuu Black and Zamasu, Caulifla and Kale, Ribrianne, Jiren in the anime. Hell, the weird plotlines in SDBH would actually make for nice character scenes and fights if the cartoon series wasn't so obviously tossed together under poor conditions for the staff. Hearts, who hates the gods and has a moral and ethical issue with them? Cool idea! Gokuu and friends protecting an innocent life from the Destruction Gods and thus bringing the two forces into conflict? Fabulous. Now just push those ideas further!

Changing Dragon Ball--like letting women or enbies into the leadership positions--won't make it good?

Like, the whole point of this thread is to criticize Dragon Ball. I love the franchise, I also want it to do better.

But it can't do better. It's had its day. The story reached its natural end and that is the root of the problem. Going past a natural end point is an exercise in futility.

I'm not sure how Jiren isn't an idea Toriyama wouldn't do but whatever. There are interesting ideas but that's it. Sparks here and there but nothing truly substantive and worth spending a whole arc on, much less an entire series. Goku and even DB as a whole are about constantly striving for greater heights. Given how much DB has explored and what the original ending was where else is there to go with the story?

[JulieYBM]

It actually can do better and has in some respects, it just needs to not be made with no time or staff.

Like...this is not hard. Imagining better Dragon Ball isn't impossible. It's right there--we can see in hindsight how things can be improved. Now use those lessons and apply them.

[MyVisionity]

There's absolutely nothing sexist about it. Nobody said it should be "women only". Men are different from women and women are different from men. Hiring more women will almost inevitably produce different results in the story and franchise than if it were a male-dominated office.

Does the idea of seeing more women perspectives bother you this much?

What you're arguing is the equivalent of what something a racist would argue, so yes, you are being sexist.

And similarly, I would say that Black people are different from White people and White people are different from Black people.

That's a very vague comment and I would argue it is sexist, it's not hard to be more precise in your arguments. Not to mention he literally stated that he stands by what he said, these arguments are what fuels this traditional view on people based on sex and gender, which is entirely incorrect.

I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here. Is it the lack of precision that's the problem? I didn't think that I needed to be technical about why women are different from men in this situation. And I certainly wasn't arguing from a purely biological perspective.

You are correct that my statements have traditionally been used to reinforce oppression upon women and minorities. However, that does not necessarily mean that they should be avoided. It just means that clarity and understanding are important. And that those statements shouldn't be used carelessly.

[ABED]

It actually can do better and has in some respects, it just needs to not be made with no time or staff.

Like...this is not hard. Imagining better Dragon Ball isn't impossible. It's right there--we can see in hindsight how things can be improved. Now use those lessons and apply them.

It's not a function of time.

Imagining pretty much anything isn't hard but it's just that - imagination. Processes can be improved but the actual story and the inspiration and lightning in a bottle can't. It reached the end. Everything now is just treading water.

[pepd]

Gender, sex, race,etc doesn't matter. What matters is that who takes the role understands Dragon Ball and can continue Toriyama's Dragon Ball. Does social and biological differences makes more likely that who is more suited for the job turns out to be a man? Sure, but, as Aim said, it's an spectrum, and gender doesn't matter by itself.

[JulieYBM]

Gender, sex, race,etc doesn't matter. What matters is that who takes the role understands Dragon Ball and can continue Toriyama's Dragon Ball. Does social and biological differences makes more likely that who is more suited for the job turns out to be a man? Sure, but, as Aim said, it's an spectrum, and gender doesn't matter by itself.

We're discussing a difference in perspectives, ideas and expression. As such, there is a difference between different people of different immutable aspects.

[ABED]

Dragon Ball created by people other than Toriyama is like those pictures you see every now and then of Goku drawn by other popular artists. It's nice and all but that's not Dragon Ball.

[The Bastard.]

Some researches that I saw pointed to evidence that the brains of girls and boys are developed in different ways since the womb, which makes some sense, boys are born with higher levels of testosterone than girls, and hormones could affect the way the brain is formed, you can see adolescents have, huh, different ways of expressing in their groups, with boys behaving more like raging monkeys for example.

Some people are quick to dismiss the impact biology has on personality and even in the gender difference, I firmly believe it makes a big difference in the way men and women behave, even more in younger ages, sociology can't explain everything by itself.

Chromosomes dictate the characteristics in the womb, a baby doesn't come out with fully developed breasts or a beard.

Boys being seen as "raging monkeys" is a huge generalisation, that's part of societal conditioning, males in general are given more leeway than females, thus females are taught to be more submissive. Sure, hormones do affect people, but everyone reacts differently to them, you may as well make the argument that certain races and sexuality's should be excluded because "they're different".

These views are very outdated and as time goes on they are proved to be more and more complicated. Human beings are very flexible, and our environment plays a huge part in our development, with human beings it's nurture over nature a lot more than the vise versa.

Sociology definitely can explain lots of these things, it's linked in with environment. The fact society still has such a rigid view of sex and gender and how boys and girls should act goes to show there's still a huge environmental influence.

Gender and sex are different, so I'm unsure as to why you brought that up, since gender is also like a spectrum, it proves my point that there's no inherently "male" or "female" traits.

What really rubs me the wrong way is the fact it's things like these that are used to justify sexism.

Hormones change the way the brain functions. Being a woman, my brain didn't operate properly when it was operating on testosterone. I was a zombie. Now that my brain is getting the right hormone (estrogen) I can actually feel happiness, sadness and even cry and laugh. I also just feel a thousand percent more comfortable with my gender but that's bound to happen when you stop pretending to be the gender you were assigned at birth and be your actual gender.

But yeah, men, women and enbies all have different experiences and view points, even among themselves. Women in particular are constantly having to put on masks, for example. Hell, that's why it is so hard to diagnose autism in women: we're expected to be a certain way so we learn to pretend to not be autistic--usually at great cost to out health. Trans women go through something similar since we are forced by society to pretend to be a gender we are not, especially if our families don't support us growing up.

I can't comment on your experience, but trans gender people suffer from either GID or GD, it's actually different for everyone. You're spot on that men and non-binary's have different view points and experiences, that's why it doesn't make sense to use this generalisation like what "The Bastard" used.

Yep, it's harder to diagnose women with autism because it's seen as "a male trait", which is incredibly stupid and outdated.

Anyway, it's not sexist to say women, enbies and men are different. It is sexist to say all women are the same. Not all women want children, after all, and the mark of what defines a woman is really all up to the individual more so that anything else.

The problem with Dragon Ball is that it's major projects are all led by older cis and likely heterosexual men who ultimately don stray far from a similar life experience. Enbies, women and queer people in general would give Dragon Ball a new type of leadership with different passions, at least.

That's a very vague comment and I would argue it is sexist, it's not hard to be more precise in your arguments. Not to mention he literally stated that he stands by what he said, these arguments are what fuels this traditional view on people based on sex and gender, which is entirely incorrect.

I don't believe having people of LGBT or other peeps would change the series, because someone who knows Dragon Ball most likely won't make it "too deep".

You missed the whole point, sociology does not explain everything. If hormones affect how men and women grow up, the way their bodies develop, from bones to muscle mass, the brain, being a part of the body is heavily influenced by said hormones. Almost all mammals are affected by testosterone levels, it raises aggression and is vital for males to assert dominance, fight for territory and the right to reproduce. In puberty the male gets a boost in testosterone and it drives them fucking mad, again, this happens to all mammals and you can see the same behavior on monkeys. It's not just about leeway or what's right or wrong, teenagers do dumb shit just because their brains are not ready and fully formed coupled with high levels of hormone. In human history the male with higher testosterone levels would win more fights, be stronger, bigger and more aggressive than other males, leading to more testosterone levels on new babies. It's a recent event for humans to be more civilized and it's a hard thing to do, since we are brain wired to do animal stuff because we are animals in the end. Really, it's a miracle we didn't wipe ourselves yet, this doesn't excuse absolutely awful and appalling behavior, but it's just not a question of sociology and flipping a switch, reducing that to a system where everything can be solved by sociology is simplistic and wrong.

I'm being generalist because obviously there is a spectrum, not all men have high level of testosterone and not everyone is the same, that should be obvious, but hormones play a huge part in the interests of men and women, there's even an argument to be made that trans people(? English is not my first language so I don't know a better term) are born with level of hormones that match their gender. Which means a girl that is a boy, but was born a girl, has higher level of testosterone than normal, and vice versa. Which explains why they can't fit even if they can't form words yet, they see what they think they are, even if they can't explain and they want to imitate, which means playing the way they play, wear what they wear and behave the way they do, to fit and make sense of who they are.


On the topic of how DB should be made, I think it shouldn't, for at least 30 more years, it still feels good to read and watch, and as a relic of it's time period it's amazing, even if some jokes are crude, even I winced a little bit in DB, but for me is fine. A new version has to be made by someone that loves the material and wants to recreate it, preferably the same as the original but with new techniques, I don't need a FF 7 remake shenanigans, or a dark souls remaster that breaks the lighting of the game, I just need the same, but at 4k, but that's me

[pepd]

Gender, sex, race,etc doesn't matter. What matters is that who takes the role understands Dragon Ball and can continue Toriyama's Dragon Ball. Does social and biological differences makes more likely that who is more suited for the job turns out to be a man? Sure, but, as Aim said, it's an spectrum, and gender doesn't matter by itself.

We're discussing a difference in perspectives, ideas and expression. As such, there is a difference between different people of different immutable aspects.

Difference in perspectives, ideas and expression of what. If you are talking about men and women in general, or about giving the job to a woman because she is a woman, then sure (and sorry, I missed the point). But talking about the possibility of a woman (a real person, not the average) taking the lead; no, being a woman, by itself, won't necessarily make you create a different DB.
---/---

About a better Dragon Ball (not just about sex related stuff, but “consistency”, narrative, “power scaling“, etc), there is really no objective “better”, so I'm usually turn off when people talk about a “better Dragon Ball” and not clear specific changes, but there are changes in modern Dragon Ball I would like; still, I think the priority should be to understand better Tori's Dragon Ball, especially if he will be even less involved, otherwise it will just stop being Dragon Ball.

[Aim]

And similarly, I would say that Black people are different from White people and White people are different from Black people.

Yes, but it's not biological, at all.

I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here. Is it the lack of precision that's the problem? I didn't think that I needed to be technical about why women are different from men in this situation. And I certainly wasn't arguing from a purely biological perspective.

Yes, precision. You're arguing from a biological point of view, which is completely invalid considering even though these franchises are aimed at a certain demographic, a huge amount of the percentage of readers are actually mixed gender.

You are correct that my statements have traditionally been used to reinforce oppression upon women and minorities. However, that does not necessarily mean that they should be avoided. It just means that clarity and understanding are important. And that those statements shouldn't be used carelessly.

If you think it helps your point, but it doesn't, and it's an outdated view.

Maybe we should drop it here, politics get heated.

Some researches that I saw pointed to evidence that the brains of girls and boys are developed in different ways since the womb, which makes some sense, boys are born with higher levels of testosterone than girls, and hormones could affect the way the brain is formed, you can see adolescents have, huh, different ways of expressing in their groups, with boys behaving more like raging monkeys for example.

Some people are quick to dismiss the impact biology has on personality and even in the gender difference, I firmly believe it makes a big difference in the way men and women behave, even more in younger ages, sociology can't explain everything by itself.

I don't know what study you've been shown, but I've seen others that contradict that. The differences in men & women brains are more so grey matter, the biological differences that influence behavior are VERY minor, and environment actually plays a larger part. You keep saying sociology can't explain everything by itself, this is the same argument people turn to when they try to argue African American's aren't as intelligent as white people, it's completely outdated thinking and more and more studies are saying otherwise.

Adolescents are heavily influenced by environmental factors, especially societal variables. In sports classes and just others I know overall, girls did what stereo-typically would be a behavior of a boy, examples include farting out loud, being cheeky to the teacher, burping, talking about really gross shit, etc. I come from a pretty progressive part of the world, so women aren't forced to abide by these sexist "rules" that the patriarchy puts upon the rest of the planet.

Sure, biological factors come into play, but mostly on very trivial variables, other than that everything biological are theory's and most evidence points to the fact human beings are incredibly moldable by external factors.

[Locust]

There's a LOT going on in this thread, and I don't want to derail too much but -

There's no real proof that testosterone causes aggression, evidence seems to suggest social and environmental factors are more important when it comes to behaviour -

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -violence/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 132241.htm

It's a bit of an outdated mode of thinking to consider testosterone the "aggressive hormone"

We're animals yes, we have certain biological realities, but when it comes to a lot of things - sociological impact is more important, it seems
We're a thinking animal, an animal that can reason - we can overcome a lot of what was previously just considered "biological destiny"

[MyVisionity]

And similarly, I would say that Black people are different from White people and White people are different from Black people.

Yes, but it's not biological, at all.

I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here. Is it the lack of precision that's the problem? I didn't think that I needed to be technical about why women are different from men in this situation. And I certainly wasn't arguing from a purely biological perspective.

Yes, precision. You're arguing from a biological point of view, which is completely invalid considering even though these franchises are aimed at a certain demographic, a huge amount of the percentage of readers are actually mixed gender.

You are correct that my statements have traditionally been used to reinforce oppression upon women and minorities. However, that does not necessarily mean that they should be avoided. It just means that clarity and understanding are important. And that those statements shouldn't be used carelessly.

If you think it helps your point, but it doesn't, and it's an outdated view.

I think there may have been a misunderstanding somewhere because I didn't try to argue from a biological point of view. I was arguing that hiring more women would bring a different perspective to the series. I didn't think that I needed to specifically explain exactly how that would work in this instance.

[Aim]

I think there may have been a misunderstanding somewhere because I didn't try to argue from a biological point of view. I was arguing that hiring more women would bring a different perspective to the series. I didn't think that I needed to specifically explain exactly how that would work in this instance.

Alright, agree to disagree I guess.

[Matches Malone]

Fresh blood, people with different perspective, being brought into the fold can surely only be a good thing? To keep things new and interesting?

I have nothing but respect for what Toriyama brought to DB, and the manga industry as a whole, but he clearly should've stepped down after the BOG movie. That movie should've been a last hurrah for him, and a way to relaunch the franchise with new blood. He's simply holding back this franchise from reaching its full potential, a potential that can be realized with new faces behind the scenes.

[ABED]

DB is over 3 decades old. It's long past the point of being fresh.

Full potential? That was reached LONG ago. It jumped the shark in the 90s.

[Matches Malone]

DB is over 3 decades old. It's long past the point of being fresh.

Full potential? That was reached LONG ago. It jumped the shark in the 90s.

I agree, as I've said before, the BOG movie should've been a one time project. However, if they insist on continuing it indefinitely, they might as well do it though a new set of eyes, and pen.

[Jiren The Alpha]

DB is over 3 decades old. It's long past the point of being fresh.

Full potential? That was reached LONG ago. It jumped the shark in the 90s.

I agree, as I've said before, the BOG movie should've been a one time project. However, if they insist on continuing it indefinitely, they might as well do it though a new set of eyes, and pen.

No one at Toei is as creative as Toriyama, the two movies after BOG was a success and Super was a success, i want to see were Toriyama takes the story next even if they bring back old movie villians i want to see Toriyama's take on them, Toei fail in the past and Toyotaro is failing now(that Captain America tracing was the most embarrassing moment in Dragon Ball history).

[Robo4900]

Dragon Ball created by people other than Toriyama is like those pictures you see every now and then of Goku drawn by other popular artists. It's nice and all but that's not Dragon Ball.

Assuming you're referring to a theoretical reboot in this sense, then does this also reflect your view on the original anime, and the Super anime?

Yes, it's based on Toriyama's writings, but he's far from a singular auteur with one vision driving every aspect of it, the various directors, writers, etc. did their own thing with a lot of it, particularly Super, for which Toriyama only contributes rough outlines, similar to several filler storylines in the original run.

[Locust]

Full potential? That was reached LONG ago.

This seems like an impossible thing to judge - no one knows what the future will bring, what will be created

Regardless, Dragon Ball simply makes too much money for companies to just drop the IP. That's a cold, hard, cynical fact.
Companies will keep using it to make various media based off it, and if that's the case, I would rather there was an attempt to make future creations the best they possibly can be