"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Magnificent Ponta]

None of those hold up because they were completely different circumstances. With Piccolo, not only did he not do anything, killing him would've meant killing Kami.

The Piccolo comparison holds up just fine from the perspective of Goku choosing to spare, gift a senzu bean to, and wave off a clear and well-established danger to everything he knows and cares about, for reasons that seem dubious from an ordinary person's perspective.

The matter of Kami is mentioned at the time, that's true, but it is clearly subordinated to the fact that Goku leaves Piccolo to go on his merry way just because hopes this threat will get even stronger and come back to give him a better fight with more excitement - which, from an ordinary person's perspective, is...questionable, as an act of decision-making. And indeed, it is objected to strongly at the time.

But it's a classic character moment for Goku. The fact that he does it in other situations after this (e.g. Freeza) merely reinforces that what we know of his decision-making process for Moro, so I don't see why it comes in for special condemnation this time around in particular, other than that people are just more willing to be critical. It's not in any way a deviation.

Incidentally, as for 'Piccolo didn't do anything' - that couldn't be less relevant to the question; moreover, it wasn't for lack of trying (e.g., 2 attempts at blowing up the crowd at the Budokai, only averted because Goku stopped it), and arguably it isn't even true (he has the soul of a fellow who blew up a city and was responsible for the death of Goku's closest friends). Trying to hindsight it into being somehow not a bad decision to let him go at the time is unwarranted.

The idea that Goku would develop as a character and become more ruthless and merciless is unfathomable, and this is the result.

In my opinion, writing Goku to be ruthless and merciless would be character assassination, not character development. But have it your own way.

[Tai Lung]

the victory against jiren was clean for me ...
in the anime goku defeat him with UI ... in the battle and his fight of ideals he just can't get him off the platform ...

I have no problem with the way Jiren was taken down, but it would've helped if Goku had secured a major victory in a previous arc. Jiren was the 5th main antagonist in a row who Goku couldn't beat on his own, Moro is now the 7th. I have no issue with Goku losing fights, in fact I welcome it, as it's one of the things that made the original manga interesting. The problem is that it's unbalanced. In the manga, Goku's defeats were followed up be victories, same goes for everyone else. No one stayed at the top or bottom for too long. In GT, you had Goku winning everything while the others lost at everything, while in modern DB it's the opposite. There needs to be a balance of victories and defeats to give them weight, otherwise fans will starts getting annoyed, as we're currently seeing.

you would have to be more specific with buu "he defeat him alone" because buu goku he beat him with the help of polunga ,, Mr buu, mr satan and vegeta
in dbz goku only beat frieza alone but he did not kill him even in goku gt needs energy of others to defeat baby ozaru

with Moro "was" a victory but that goku giving a senzu bean to Moro to healing for complet ...this erase this victory

[JulieYBM]

Really wishing Gokuu had been paying attention and countered with Hakai to instantly kill Moro. Would have been such a neat turn around by having Gokuu shown as both merciful but also able to counter fiercely.

[The Bastard.]

Let me talk about Star Wars for a second.

Star Wars's fanbase is probably the worst fanbase in film history, complete with unbelievably toxic behavior, some of the shittiest ideas about where George Lucas should have taken the series, and, even if they were fully knowledgeable about the lore, an often rampant failure to understand his intended themes and messages at every possible turn.

The original six SW movies were great despite those people, not because of them. We already saw what happens when the writing attempts to cater to fans - virtually nobody was happy with that result.

Rest assured, I don't give one iota of a shit about what Dragon Ball's community thinks. Someone who has "constant engagement" with them should never be involved with the franchise in any official capacity.

Write what you want, regardless of controversy. The original manga was certainly no stranger to it.

Hey man, I can think there are several fanbases that can run Star Wars fanbase for their money on the worst!

Jokes aside, I agreed with your sentiment! It reminds me of several fans absolutely dropping loads in their knickers when Ian managed to cut through the inside of the barrier created by Tatsumaki. Throwing Murata under the bus, calling the illustrator an hack, downright crazy, and doing things without consulting with ONE (despite the panels clearly showing that it did took effort, and other scenes having context behind such), and proposed their own ideas that clearly better. Those conversations disappeared when another chapter details slightly on Tatsumaki's barrier. Almost like the creators and the writers know their characters and concepts a lot better than some fans. Perhaps, we should trust the writers who probably have a lot more access to the material than anyone here.

As I said before, you can dislike something, but to start pulling ideas, claim to be better and then some, just seem outright silly. I'm not a particular fan of downgrading the writer/creator's ideas over dislike. It kind on borders on "let me take this artist's drawing, and make it better" type of thing, you know?

Point me to where fans said Murata was a hack? If it's twitter, then yeah, twitter is full of the most trashy, stupid, garbage human beings on the planet.

On reddit this was a footnote in the comments, and praised when Murata explained the barrier later.

[UI Peter]

His personality was great there though.

Definitely, but when it came to fighting and overall importance, he was basically what Yamcha was in Z. Super has done so many great things with him, yet all his fans do is complain.

No GT Vegeta was much better. He moved on from being Gokus sidekick and found his own identity independent of Goku. If you’re a true Vegeta fan then you would understand him being a stubborn prideful Maverick is much more central to the character than any empty win or new technique.

GT Vegeta was an objectively worse character than his DBS anime counterpart (despite his own writing problems). The funny thing is, despite spending less screentime with Goku in GT, GT Vegeta was actually more obsessed with Goku than his DBS counterpart lol (like in that cringey scene in the 17 arc where Vegeta throws a temper tantrum over the fact that everyone values Goku over him lol:)

https://twitter.com/MJxTV/status/100244 ... 74881?s=19

And Especially in that pointless "Heart of a Prince" episode of GT where he's shown brooding over Goku's superiority and then decides to cheat his way into SSJ4 just to catch up to him (in contrast to DBS Anime Vegeta earning his own unique power-up through a motive that had nothing to do with Goku). So no, he didn't make a new identity away from Goku at all in GT.

[Matches Malone]

Writing Goku to be ruthless and merciless would be character assassination, not character development. But have it your own way.

No one's saying he should've killed someone begging not to die, but he didn't have to fully heal him.

I think he was talking production value. A brand new series trying to make a name for itself probably wouldn't be as rushed and have as little pre-production time as DBS.

This, and the writing as well. A new show/manga wouldn't get away with the amount of mistakes made by modern DB.

GT Vegeta cheat his way into SSJ4 just to catch up to him.

Vegeta didn't cheat his way to Ssj4, he gained it exactly like Goku did. In order to go Ssj4, the saiyans needs to be in control of themselves as a Golden great ape, which is exactly what Vegeta did.

How he became a great ape is where he differs from Goku. Unlike Goku, he didn't have time to go get his tail pulled out and leave earth so that his body would absorb the moon's Blutz waves, so instead he just had Bulma unnaturally fill him up with them. The way Goku became a great ape wasn't something he couldn't do as well, but rather something he didn't have time to do.

[Skar]

In my opinion, writing Goku to be ruthless and merciless would be character assassination, not character development. But have it your own way.

I think Goku was more willing to kill after Freeza saga and came to the realization that some people are too evil to let live.

-We know he killed Freeza and Cold in the future timeline,

-Wasn't against Vegeta and Trunks killing Cell after their training.

-Attempted to kill Cell with the IT Kamehameha and Cell only survived because he could regenerate.

-Told Gohan to finish off Cell quickly.

-Didn't object to Vegeta killing Pui Pui even though he was at Vegeta's mercy and killed Yakon himself.

-Intended for Goten and Trunks to kill Buu with fusion then Gohan after the ritual.

-Attempted to kill Kid Buu with SSJ3 before his energy ran out.

When I watched GT, I never thought Goku was too ruthless when he killed Baby, Super 17, and most the Shadow Dragons and it just seemed like natural progression from how he acted in the last two arcs of the manga. There are examples of Goku being more merciful but they happen before these arcs so I don't think it would be out of character for Goku to kill Moro. If giving Moro a senzu results in Goku losing the battle, I definitely think it would've made more sense to have Moro go out fighting like these other villains that Goku was willing to kill. I don't want him to make a dumb decision for the sake of a surprise ending.

[SupremeKai25]

In my opinion, writing Goku to be ruthless and merciless would be character assassination, not character development. But have it your own way.

Not ruthless and merciless, more ruthless and merciless.

Regardless, no wonder people in anime fandom mock Dragon Ball for its story when fans refuse to have the main character develop as a character.

[Matches Malone]

Especially in that pointless "Heart of a Prince" episode of GT where he's shown brooding over Goku's superiority.

I decided to take a look at that, and to my surprise, it's a dub only change. In the Japanese version, Vegeta says he gave up on chasing Goku years ago, and he only trains to see how far he can push his own limits. That's exactly how a post Buu arc Vegeta should be characterized. GT is by no means a great show, but the dub outright creates plot hols, inconsistencies, and unneeded changes. If you're going to judge GT, at least do so based on the Japanese version. Foe the Super 17 post on twitter, what's wrong with it ? Vegeta, Piccolo, & Tien would never outright ask someone to help or save them. The dub also made that scene worse by exaggerating Vegeta's response.

[Lionel]

It's times like these I feel inclined to hearken back to the days of when Gohan was being groomed for the mantle of hero. It ultimately didn't pan out but I have to wonder if he wouldn't have turned out differently and handled this situation in another manner. To be fair, it's quite possible he may have made just as big of a rookie mistake as Goku -- for some reason his fists became less clenched and his mind wavered on the prospect of bloodying himself when needed. It puts the minor yet glaring detail of him killing Sui in perspective.

A lot has already been said of Goku's "act of mercy" here. I think allowing a pleading enemy to live might be passable if it's believed that another form of punishment is available. Where the line is drawn and where someone has to speak out against him for his intentions is the sensu as has already been argued so much on here. What does Goku expect for the others around him to do next? Jaco -- being the de facto spokesman for the Galactic Patrol on the scene -- has already issued a death warrant for Moro. How would allowing Moro to live, much less restoring his health and stamina, change the situation except render the non-threat a threat once more?

At the most, Goku should have taken a page out of his post-Freeza bifurcation playbook and distribute just enough energy for Moro to be stabilised. Well... Perhaps a bit less than what Freeza received.

[Jack Bz]

I have no problem with Goku giving a senzu to a dying opponent who is begging for help, despite the danger. I have a problem with that resulting in Moro getting the upper hand and beating Goku. What really doesn't make sense is him not letting Vegeta spirit fission Moro before that happens.

To people who say it is an insult to Merus for Goku to heal Moro: in the chapter with the flashback with Goku and Merus, they discuss the fact that Goku often spares opponents, and Merus was intrigued by that quality, he admired it. This was practically foreshadowed...but the execution seems to be lacking from what I've seen so far.

I don't like the idea that this backfires for Goku. I don't really know what the ideological point is meant to be if that's the case. That Merus and Goku were wrong? To trust in organisations over your own feelings? I don't like when the show punishes mercy. With the cell arc it was more of a criticism of complete pacifism, which is fine.

I fear this whole thing will just be for Vegeta to get some limelight and help out, which would be disappointing

[SupremeKai25]

I have no problem with Goku giving a senzu to a dying opponent who is begging for help, despite the danger. I have a problem with that resulting in Moro getting the upper hand and beating Goku. What really doesn't make sense is him not letting Vegeta spirit fission Moro before that happens.

To people who say it is an insult to Merus for Goku to heal Moro: in the chapter with the flashback with Goku and Merus, they discuss the fact that Goku often spares opponents, and Merus was intrigued by that quality, he admired it. This was practically foreshadowed...but the execution seems to be lacking from what I've seen so far.

I don't like the idea that this backfires for Goku. I don't really know what the ideological point is meant to be if that's the case. That Merus and Goku were wrong? To trust in organisations over your own feelings? I don't like when the show punishes mercy. With the cell arc it was more of a criticism of complete pacifism, which is fine.

I fear this whole thing will just be for Vegeta to get some limelight and help out, which would be disappointing

To not be merciful towards genocidal psychos. To understand that some people can't be reasoned with. Those are valuable lessons for kids.

[Jack Bz]

I have no problem with Goku giving a senzu to a dying opponent who is begging for help, despite the danger. I have a problem with that resulting in Moro getting the upper hand and beating Goku. What really doesn't make sense is him not letting Vegeta spirit fission Moro before that happens.

To people who say it is an insult to Merus for Goku to heal Moro: in the chapter with the flashback with Goku and Merus, they discuss the fact that Goku often spares opponents, and Merus was intrigued by that quality, he admired it. This was practically foreshadowed...but the execution seems to be lacking from what I've seen so far.

I don't like the idea that this backfires for Goku. I don't really know what the ideological point is meant to be if that's the case. That Merus and Goku were wrong? To trust in organisations over your own feelings? I don't like when the show punishes mercy. With the cell arc it was more of a criticism of complete pacifism, which is fine.

I fear this whole thing will just be for Vegeta to get some limelight and help out, which would be disappointing

To not be merciful towards genocidal psychos. To understand that some people can't be reasoned with. Those are valuable lessons for kids.

I understand that, but I'm just not liking how that paints the whole situation with Merus and his conversation with Goku in the flashback. It makes me wonder what we were meant to get from that scene. Now it just seems tainted. Merus was meant to be influenced by Goku to the point of straying from the neutrality he's bounded by, and now the manga is going to convey that Goku's ideology is dangerous.

[Kinokima]

Goku’s ideology is not bad but the theme is badly used against a character like Moro. If it hadn’t backfired on Goku the writing would have been bad too because it ignores Goku made a terrible mistake here. And I don’t like characters getting away with mistakes just because they are the main character. The problem is they shouldn’t of had Goku make this terrible mistake in the first place just for some dumb twist. Because in the end that is what this is about.

Goku inspiring others to be better is good writing. He inspired Hit for example though Hit isn’t a genocidal maniac. And yes he inspired characters like Piccolo and Vegeta (but that also wasn’t instantaneous)

Hell even if somehow Goku had inspired Zamasu maybe I could have bought that because Zamasu was once good and became corrupted.

There is a time and place for such themes and this wasn’t the arc for it in my opinion. Goku has also shown that he knows when someone is too dangerous to let go in the past, especially as the series went on.

And no I wouldn’t want Goku to spare and heal Moro just to beat him up again. Because I really don’t see the point of that. Even writing the situation so Moro gets trapped under a rock & has to beg for mercy was a manipulative set up.

[SupremeKai25]

At some point you have to ask yourself what's the bar for redeemable villains in the Dragon Ball verse, because Zamasu was easily the deepest DB villain, and yet Goku never even tried to redeem him. I could make the same argument for Cell. He was the only Z villain who didn't receive any form of redemption or forgiveness, despite being the closest to Goku in personality (I mean, he literally had his cells). I literally never saw Goku try to spare Zamasu and Cell, in fact he wanted to kill them at all costs, yet he has no problem sparing Moro. Nice logic.

[MCDaveG]

At some point you have to ask yourself what's the bar for redeemable villains in the Dragon Ball verse, because Zamasu was easily the deepest DB villain, and yet Goku never even tried to redeem him. I could make the same argument for Cell. He was the only Z villain who didn't receive any form of redemption or forgiveness, despite being the closest to Goku in personality (I mean, he literally had his cells). I literally never saw Goku try to spare Zamasu and Cell, in fact he wanted to kill them at all costs, yet he has no problem sparing Moro. Nice logic.

But Cell and Zamasu were kind of beyond that... they were like the GT villains in a sense, as Piccolo and Freeza were kind of rivals to Goku that pushed him forward and he had a means to deal with them, but both Cell and Zamasu were beyond that. Zamasu the most, he didn’t care about power or martial arts, he just used them as necessary means for the end goal, which was obliterate all the sentient life in existence as only nature and divine was worthy of existence. And it twisted him so much that he was simply against everyone and everything. They were kinda simmilar in this with Cell, as he also viewed himself as superior to everyone and nothing subpar than him was worth of existing and if someone was, he would challenge him to prove his point. So these guys were beyond reasoning in my opinion...

But with Moro, Goku kind of takes a pitty on him as he did with Freeza.

[Magnificent Ponta]

I think Goku was more willing to kill after Freeza saga and came to the realization that some people are too evil to let live.

I dunno about that; Goku was perfectly willing to kill before then, if he saw the need; Dragon Ball prior to the 23rd Budokai is fairly littered with corpses, particularly the Red Ribbon arc. So I don't really see much deviation from his norm if he continues to kill on occasion.

I just think it's perfectly in character for Goku to spare people, too - whatever onlookers may think, he doesn't think it's stupid for him to give even the most wretched villain another chance; he only thinks it's stupid for them not to take it when it's offered (as he says twice of Freeza).

So I don't see how excising or diminishing the merciful aspects of Goku's character would be an improvement, and I don't get the people saying this kind of action 'dumbs down' Goku's character, is really the focus of my objection.

I have no problem with Goku giving a senzu to a dying opponent who is begging for help, despite the danger. I have a problem with that resulting in Moro getting the upper hand and beating Goku.
[...]
I don't like the idea that this backfires for Goku. I don't really know what the ideological point is meant to be if that's the case. That Merus and Goku were wrong? To trust in organisations over your own feelings? I don't like when the show punishes mercy.

This, however, is another matter, and I agree that it's the principal objection going to the narrative at the moment - if it goes the way that has been teased, it does work against itself for the sake of a simple action twist, which would be very unfortunate because it looks contrived.

But again, I guess it depends as much on how it happens, as that it happens. There's been a lot so far in Super that I've disliked as bare information on a page, but which I've been totally fine with in its final depiction.

[Kinokima]

Another good example is Goku telling Vegeta to not kill Broly. Vegeta saw Broly as a dangerous threat so acted accordingly but Goku could tell Broly was not evil. Wanting to spare Broly here makes sense with Goku’s character and is a good character moment.

[Cipher]

Thanks man! Always coming in with that information. Huh... interesting to see that coloring are done by colorist teams. I always assumed that the creator does that at some point in the future, but based on what provided, it doesn't seems to be the case (similar to the colorist team in the United States for Marvel and DC).

You said that there often inconsistencies with colors for characters in the manga (and I can imagine some in the original manga run). Where there cases of characters having completely different colors between the two mediums (anime and manga)?

For Super specifically? Since the coloring tends to take its cues from the anime unless Toyotaro has done something different in a volume cover, there aren't many. However, color Super does give present-day child Trunks blue hair, as opposed to the anime's purple. (Likely prompted by Trunks' blue hair on the volume covers.) Tenshinhan also keeps his Battle of Gods outfit colors in the colored edition of the manga's Tournament of Power, likely taking cues from the Volume 9 cover.

And yet there are deviations from Toyotaro's own colored work--a completely different shade used for Super Saiyan Blue from either Toyotaro's own self-colored art or the anime, for example. Rather infamously, what are normal-colored scraps of clothing hovering around Ultra Instinct in Toyotaro's colored artwork are also colored as flecks of aura in Volumes 8 and 9.

[Matches Malone]

I fear this whole thing will just be for Vegeta to get some limelight and help out, which would be disappointing.

I don't mind Vegeta or Buu getting the big W, I just don't understand why Goku has to be written so badly for that to happen.