"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Matches Malone]

Meh chapter can’t wait for this shit to end next chapter

It probably won't end until December, as next month will be mostly fighting with December being an epilogue chapter that wraps everything up.

[Lord Beerus]

Random and scattered thoughts of Chapter 65:

- I HATED the scene where Goku was trying to convince Moro to go away and train. Part of what makes antagonists slowly become better people in Dragon Ball was always through Goku's actions not his words. It seems like Toyotaro took the context of Goku saying to Freeza back on Namek before they had their battle that he would have made a good sparring partner if he wasn't so evil, and tried to expand on that previous character beat, not realising that moment wasn't meant to serve as Goku trying to get Freeza to become a decent person. Moro has lived for millions of years and has wiped out God knows how many lives across the universe and has openly declared he likes doing it. So it's way too late for Goku to be expecting some form of humanity from Moro, that it makes him so ridiculously naive for him to even entertain Moro with the idea of him willingly surrendering to the Galactic Patrol. Especially considering Goku never showed this kind of mercy to previous antagonists in Super, or Dragon Ball general, when they were more vulnerable than Moro. So this character beat feel arbitrary and out of place in general.

Can you stop with this dishonest take about Goku telling him to go away and train? He never offers to let him leave other than to return to prison. He's just telling him that he lost because of his insistence on taking shortcuts like copying powers instead of training. He bemoans the fact that Moro is irredeemable. He even confirms to Jaco he was never going to let him go so why are you being so fundamentally dishonest about this?

I should have worded the first sentence better (the "go away" part), but the main point still stands about how Goku is hoping for some decency from a person like Moro is horribly foolish on Goku's part and inconsistent character writing.

[The Undying]

This just might be one of my favorite chapters of the entire arc.

The latter half is by far the most thematic and interesting thing the story has done with Moro's character - he's finally paying the consequences for absorbing power that wasn't his, distinguishing that method from Goku and Vegeta training their asses off to stop him. Stealing vs. giving/earning has been a recurring thesis of the arc and it's good to see that coming full circle here. He thought he had the upper hand again with his own version of Ultra Instinct, but couldn't handle it because he doesn't train. He's basically the opposite of Jiren.

Also, good god, what an absolute shitshow this past week. Everyone predictably had their monthly tantrum over out-of-context spoilers, but as it turns out, the "senzu" development went down exactly as anyone familiar with DB's mainstays suspected it would: Goku was fully prepared to kill goat man from the start, but gave him a senzu bean because he respected his strength and (selfishly) wanted Moro to become a potential sparring partner rather than an enemy to be put down. It's no secret that Goku views power greater than his own as wasted on those who don't respect the sport, no matter how despicable they are, and still wasn't at all surprised to see Moro squandering his chances. Restoring his strength and then trying to convince him to see the light was for Goku's own benefit, not Moro's.

Good. This is classic Goku, and characters making irresponsible choices is classic Dragon Ball. Contrary to popular headcanon, there was never a single implication that Goku "learned" from his dozen decisions that endangered the world in the original manga; he was still making selfish ones at the expense of others in the Boo arc. The moment this becomes about generic superheroes doing heroic pragmatic things is the moment it becomes like any other derivative substandard shonen, so it's great that the manga understands what gives DB its identity while refusing to appease those who just want the plot to play out in the most straightforward manner possible.

In other words, to reference chapter titles, "Son Goku, Earthling" is much closer to the spirit of the franchise as a character than "Son Goku, Galactic Patrol Officer". Some of Dragon Ball's best moments had him doing crazy stuff like this, not just in spite of but especially when supporting characters strongly opposed it.

Moro becoming one with the planet is a bit contrived for my liking, but the idea of Vegeta presumably getting involved again suits the narrative. I'd agree this all would come across as repetitive if the chapter ended with Moro being in an advantageous position again, but I'm not convinced he is this time. To make that assumption is more than a little premature when the chapter makes it rather apparent he's desperate.

I fuck with this. It's better than last month's chapter as far as I'm concerned.

[JewyB]

Meh chapter can’t wait for this shit to end next chapter

It probably won't end until December, as next month will be mostly fighting with December being an epilogue chapter that wraps everything up.

I see this too, either and epilogue chapter, or wrapped up by then end with a chapter of slice of life stuff doing the necessary set up for the next arc.

Btw if Beerus' planet gets destroyed at the beginning of an arc to demonstrate a villains power, i want it known that i'm calling it now.

I should have worded the first sentence better (the "go away" part), but the main point still stands about how Goku is hoping for some decency from a person like Moro is horribly foolish on Goku's part and inconsistent character writing.

I mean, based on Goku's entire life experience where even a person who was so irredeemable his soul couldn't be processed through hell is somewhat his friendly rival now, i would say it would be inconsistent for him to expect Moro to not have any shot at redemption.

Restoring his strength and then trying to convince him to see the light was for Goku's own benefit, not Moro's.

Thanks for clarifying it this way ,i tried to touch on it in my post but couldnt find the words nor brain power. Generally pretty decent take overall i feel.

ALSO PREDICTION: Vegeta splits Moro from the planet and 73. Buu turns up to deal with Moro, magic vs magic. 73 still has Merus absorbed and a rapidly expanding power that needs to be stopped, Goku and Vegeta deal wtih him. This is assuming Toyo and Tori havent completely forgotten the Buu plot thread.

[Lord Beerus]

I should have worded the first sentence better (the "go away" part), but the main point still stands about how Goku is hoping for some decency from a person like Moro is horribly foolish on Goku's part and inconsistent character writing.

I mean, based on Goku's entire life experience where even a person who was so irredeemable his soul couldn't be processed through hell is somewhat his friendly rival now, i would say it would be inconsistent for him to expect Moro to not have any shot at redemption.

The conversation rate of irredeemable pieces of shit to genuinely good people in Dragon Ball is far too low to be taking that gamble.

[Femme Fatale Kikaza]

I should have worded the first sentence better (the "go away" part), but the main point still stands about how Goku is hoping for some decency from a person like Moro is horribly foolish on Goku's part and inconsistent character writing.

I mean, based on Goku's entire life experience where even a person who was so irredeemable his soul couldn't be processed through hell is somewhat his friendly rival now, i would say it would be inconsistent for him to expect Moro to not have any shot at redemption.

The conversation rate of irredeemable pieces of shit to genuinely good people in Dragon Ball is far too low to be taking that gamble.

There's also the chance Moro could just bide his time and wait for an opportunity to kill them when they aren't looking. Seriously, Moro can outlive them by millions of years, he'd just have to wait until Goku dies and go back to doing what he wanted.

[Koitsukai]

I think the spoiler/draft issue needs to be reviewed.
I still don't know what the point is to release drafts -for months people have been going nuts or jumping to conclusions based on two or three panels out of context, but is beyond our power.
I'm talking about this thread that has more pages and discussions about the unrealeased chapters and the spoilers than the chapter itself. Maybe locking this up until the release or having a special thread for drafts and spoilers would be better, because there is no way you can come in here without reading people's outrage, unsubstantiated conclusions or learning stuff you didn't want to.

Also something did go "wrong" this week, I tend to use my own UI with spoilers so I'm not really sure, but if I'm not mistaken there was a second set of spoilers aside of the usual draft leak, and one that pretty much uncovered the whole chapter.

[FortuneSSJ]

- Chapter 65-

Both Manga Plus and Viz weren't working properly. Even without an anime for years, seems like our fanbase can still crash some servers.

Overall I liked it much more than I thought I would after seeing the drafts.
Didn't expect the twist in page 9 to be Moro breaking his hand by punching Goku's chest. Dragon Ball once again being unpredictable.

Goku gave him a senzu, but still kept his guard up in that moment and didn't faze, when Moro decided to attack him. I don't like how he reverted to base after that though, should have kept MUI. Toyotaro probably wanted to show us Goku can use MUI whenever he wants now, but that could be done later.

Just like Jaco said, Goku didn't need to heal Moro for him to get arrested. The senzu was to test Moro's character, which he failed after not keeping his word. Besides Adult Goku already being a forgiving guy, he didn't want to kill Moro because that's not what galactic patrol does (flashback in chapter 61) and out of respect for Merus (chapter 64 first pages), despite the bad things Moro did.

Goku mastering UI is a bad thing, if that means he will use it in every major fight from now on. It should only be used as a trump card and not even for every main villain, but knowing how this franchise works.... I have to say I'm surprised that MUI has been unbeatable for two arcs though.

Mortal's bodies not withstand Angels' power without proper training is a good thing, because makes Angels feel special and avoid having villains get to that level by cheating.

Less than two chapters for the end I suppose, and Vegeta's new technique may still play a key role on Moro's defeat.

[JewyB]

The conversation rate of irredeemable pieces of shit to genuinely good people in Dragon Ball is far too low to be taking that gamble.

Is it though? Lets take a look(I'm going to include a bunch of people for reasons i'll explain after):

Goku(Included because despite being a hero, he was also a mass murderer, he now fights without the intent to kill, also important to my point)
Oolong(Our first villain, Goku overpowered him and he became his friend, setting the standard)
Yamcha(Bandit who was perfectly willing to attack a starving child)
Ox-King(fabled monster who Goku meets and he's actually a super nice guy!)
Pilaf squad(All three now work for Bulma but does Goku know? Debatable)
Chiaotzu(Mini Tien)
Tien(Wanted to use his martial arts for muuuuuurder)
Yajirobe(Beats Goku, becomes Gokus friend)
Piccolo(Literally a demon king)
Vegeta(Mass genocide commiting space mercenary)
Frieza(As i've said, not "redeemed" but he's no longer villain, he's about 30% on the path to gokus best bud)
16/17/18(Goku murder machines)
Buu(Somehow been redeemed twice, in two forms, the good form that ate everyone and the evil form thats a little boy)
Beerus(Literally in the position of killing species, may be his job but its dark, is not a babysitter)
Hit(Space assassin and gokus best brother from another universother)
Jiren(included for being an antagonist, and the most recent one of super, who was overpowered by Goku and became his friend, see: Oolong)
Broly(not really evil in any way but he was an antagonist so lets include him ,they're pals now!)

Now, thats basically most of Goku's fight history. Left out is Mercenary Tao, who was dealt with by Tien, Cell, who was dealt with by Gohan and more powerful than Goku, Zamasu who was handled by Zeno and more powerful than Goku, and then just henchmen i guess?

Goku is on the list because Goku started life as a little murder machine who grew up to find killing reprehensible, so maybe he sees himself in all the people who kill because they are powerful, because he started that way himself and has, himself, changed.

But this is all based on Gokus perception, almost everyone he has ever beaten has turned a new leaf, why wouldn't Moro when he is in the same position as every other person he has beaten? It would be inconsistent and out of character for Goku to go "Welp, this has never worked before, time for murder" rather than go "I'm gonna let this guy live like 95% of the peope i have ever come into contact with ever since growing up".

[Lionel]

Not sure how many people have already pointed this out but did anyone else notice the efficiency and thoroughness of the sensu's healing? It's the first time we've witnessed its regenerative attributes on-screen like that. Many fans contended that the beans couldn't regenerate limbs, despite historically it proving capable of restoring lung and organ tissues when someone had a perforation through their chest.

I know most fans are more preoccupied, understandably it should be added, with the ethics and mindset of feeding that bean to Moro. My own thoughts happen to mirror others' -- a needless gesture of leniency that only served the author to revert Moro back into a threat. Jaco needs to have the control required for detaining and escorting this being. Any type of restoration of stamina only makes that capacity impossible for him. More than that, how did Goku not anticipate a proverbial stabbing in the back immediately after Moro was restored? You think he would have learned with past examples like Freeza or Tao Pai Pai. These people aren't penitent nor are they concerned with seeing to it that justice is served. Usually their only focus is to dismantle whatever it was that brought them so low because their hubris demands it. Moro is one of the worst as he has already been faced with the full extent of the law and has had millions of years to reflect upon his atrocities. Guess what? The man is still an impenitent sociopath. Goku and the others should have already resolved themselves to killing him, at the latest, after he massacred the Namekians. The moral event horizon was already so far behind Moro that he's now in the abyss.

What I'm also a bit miffed about is the discussion about training. Goku, not everyone physiologically operates like you do. Such beings like Moro or Cell appear to be organically geared towards parasitical consumption. I'm not to moralise or vindicate their crimes because they're inexcusable but the silliness of his proposal I found to be off-putting. Does Goku have anything to say about the cyborgs and their genetically modified bodies? What about Piccolo and his two assimilated Namekians? If unorthodox methods of power acquisition don't sit well with him then he's got a plethora of individuals to confront regarding including himself since he did effectively bypass conventional training to improve himself to take on Daimou using the Chonshinsui.

So any guess as to how this narrative climax is going to finish? My guess is that either Vegeta's Spirit Fission ability will come into play -- as others have pointed out -- or possibly Whis involves himself a la protecting the Z-Warriors and then rewinding time during the ROF arc.

[The Undying]

Also something did go "wrong" this week, I tend to use my own UI with spoilers so I'm not really sure, but if I'm not mistaken there was a second set of spoilers aside of the usual draft leak, and one that pretty much uncovered the whole chapter.

Unofficial spoilers generally always surface a few days prior to release, and people have collectively gone into a meltdown over those for years too.

The official drafts just made the problem about ten times worse.

[JewyB]

Unofficial spoilers generally always surface a few days prior to release, and people have collectively gone into a meltdown over those for years too.

The official drafts just made the problem about ten times worse.

I personally dont mind the drafts, they're like a trailer imo and at least better than having nothing at all the entire month, the drafts preview the actual content. They also seem to be released specifically to tease, last months containing one of the last pages so we didnt have the fight or transformation ruined, but got a good shot of UI goku, and this months being the first 8 pages, cut off jsut before the actio nstarts and with some good amount of context missing. Great teases. But the leaks are just... summaries of what happens.

And whilst we can all take away what we want from how we read the manga, its a lot easier to misinterpret a summary of a graphic novel than it is the actual graphic novel itself.

[goku the krump dancer]

I wonder if Vegeta can Fission Punch the ground and force a separation, that'll be funny lol.

[Femme Fatale Kikaza]

I wonder if Vegeta can Fission Punch the ground and force a separation, that'll be funny lol.

They'll probably have Vegeta have to actually punch the part of Moro on earth(like his face) just to make it more difficult for Vegeta. I imagine Vegeta won't be able to since Moro has MUI at the moment and will need some help not getting murdered on his way to defuse the guy.

[Lord Beerus]

The conversation rate of irredeemable pieces of shit to genuinely good people in Dragon Ball is far too low to be taking that gamble.

Is it though? Lets take a look(I'm going to include a bunch of people for reasons i'll explain after):

Goku(Included because despite being a hero, he was also a mass murderer, he now fights without the intent to kill, also important to my point)
Oolong(Our first villain, Goku overpowered him and he became his friend, setting the standard)
Yamcha(Bandit who was perfectly willing to attack a starving child)
Ox-King(fabled monster who Goku meets and he's actually a super nice guy!)
Pilaf squad(All three now work for Bulma but does Goku know? Debatable)
Chiaotzu(Mini Tien)
Tien(Wanted to use his martial arts for muuuuuurder)
Yajirobe(Beats Goku, becomes Gokus friend)
Piccolo(Literally a demon king)
Vegeta(Mass genocide commiting space mercenary)
Frieza(As i've said, not "redeemed" but he's no longer villain, he's about 30% on the path to gokus best bud)
16/17/18(Goku murder machines)
Buu(Somehow been redeemed twice, in two forms, the good form that ate everyone and the evil form thats a little boy)
Beerus(Literally in the position of killing species, may be his job but its dark, is not a babysitter)
Hit(Space assassin and gokus best brother from another universother)
Jiren(included for being an antagonist, and the most recent one of super, who was overpowered by Goku and became his friend, see: Oolong)
Broly(not really evil in any way but he was an antagonist so lets include him ,they're pals now!)

Now, thats basically most of Goku's fight history. Left out is Mercenary Tao, who was dealt with by Tien, Cell, who was dealt with by Gohan and more powerful than Goku, Zamasu who was handled by Zeno and more powerful than Goku, and then just henchmen i guess?

Goku is on the list because Goku started life as a little murder machine who grew up to find killing reprehensible, so maybe he sees himself in all the people who kill because they are powerful, because he started that way himself and has, himself, changed.

But this is all based on Gokus perception, almost everyone he has ever beaten has turned a new leaf, why wouldn't Moro when he is in the same position as every other person he has beaten? It would be inconsistent and out of character for Goku to go "Welp, this has never worked before, time for murder" rather than go "I'm gonna let this guy live like 95% of the peope i have ever come into contact with ever since growing up"

Most of the people you mentioned don't come close to level of collateral damage Moro has racked up. That's the big difference. Oolong, #16, #17, #18, Pilaf Gang, Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Yajirobe, Piccolo, Jiren and Broly may have had unscrupulous personalities, but we never saw them go out of their way to murder people, let alone people across the galaxy, and actively enjoy it. And that not even taking into the consideration some of the people you named never met Goku, let alone fought him. Context is important in this situation.

[BWri]

Welp, chapter is out ... and Goku is dumb as hell. You were all right. Moro was cool though. I wouldn't mind swapping Goku with with this Goat. He'd at least know when to kill a multi-universal threat.

[LoganForkHands73]

I think this whole set-up could have been avoided in many, many ways, but overall I liked the chapter, partly because I tried to go into it with an open mind. But I honestly think it was pretty good. I loved the intimate moment between Goku and Moro. Piccolo's speech about how Goku changes people clearly had an impact as Goku's now being oddly studious and insightful about it, asking him why he never trains, why he won't turn himself in, etc. He knows that Moro's irredeemable but only sees it as a damn waste of amazing potential. I've always liked the "good cannot comprehend evil" trope. After all this time, Goku still can't fully understand why a person with such power would waste it by being evil and sadistic, but for maybe the first time, he wants to try to. Everyone says that Goku's just being stupid but this is perhaps one of the most intellectually verbose moments he's ever had, probably since the 23rd Budokai all those years ago.

Seeing Moro in such a helpless position does reveal some more sides to his character (though in some ways maybe too little too late). His comment about being brought down by a tribe that only evolved a few million years ago provides a new perspective to his attitude to other beings and why he treats them so callously. Although we already knew Moro is ancient, he's one of the oldest beings in the universe -- he's lived long enough to see species and civilisations evolve and crumble. They really are all just mayflies to him. He prizes his freedom to do what he wants with these insects more than anything, which is why he hates the prospect of prison so much.

Moro painfully breaking his wrist on Goku's brick-shithouse abs was a brutal scene, actually made me wince.

I will say that the exact gesture of giving Moro a senzu bean does feel hackneyed and unnecessary in this instance, for reasons I'm sure many people have already beaten to death at this point.

Props to the dudes who correctly anticipated that Moro would gain Ultra Instinct, only for it to backfire due to his inability to control it. Although I was initially averse to the idea as seen in GodVegetto's thread, I saw that Moro's mindset is completely wrong for Ultra Instinct which is proven right here as Toyo reemphasises that it's as much of a technique and state of mind as it is a "transformation" (aren't most transformations just techniques at the end of the day?) The execution is appropriately kooky and bizarre. Though logically Goku should have of course just killed Moro when he had the chance, him merging with the planet itself is such a U-turn that nobody could have anticipated. It's like the last minute bullshit that was Super Perfect Cell -- it's just a formality to set up Vegeta using the de-fusion technique. It's a nice book-end to the fact that Moro lives by feeding off planets, now he's resorted to merging with one to survive.

[Gt91]

I read the full chapter and actually it's a GREAT chapter.
The sensu part makes sense now and the "training part" as well (it's not the first time he spares an emey, remember frieza for example).
Moro getting merus power, he can't use it properly, magic ecc are good ideas. I didn't see them coming!
Good to see Whis "in action" too.

I think the next chapter will be the last of this arc (maybe in december we'll get the first half with moro and the second with the new arc).
I hope to see Vegeta and majin boo helping Goku to defeat Moro once for all.

Again, nice chapter for me!
The hatred towars Toyotaro is exaggerated. People seriously need to calm down.

[JewyB]

Most of the people you mentioned don't come close to level of collateral damage Moro has racked up. That's the big difference. Oolong, #16, #17, #18, Pilaf Gang, Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Yajirobe, Piccolo, Jiren and Broly may have had unscrupulous personalities, but we never saw them go out of their way to murder people, let alone people across the galaxy, and actively enjoy it. And that not even taking into the consideration some of the people you named never met Goku, let alone fought him. Context is important in this situation.

Its not about the level of damage they rack up, its about the series of events, they always play out the same regardless of the level of damage as long as Goku is strong enough.

And context is important, and in the context of Goku right now, he is fighting on his own terms and not thinking about the moral consequences of keeping Moro alive or the greater good. And to push this even further, he is literally acting entirely on instinct, on making huge judgements, his mind is clear, so he will act how he always acts regardless of consequence.

That would explain how repetitive this arc has been and all the callbacks, maybe UI is all just references to earlier moves and decisions. Maybe Toyo is a wayyyy better writer than we've been giving him credit for, hmmmm....

[Ziegander]

Personally, I'm shocked to see so many people who hated the spoilers turning around almost or entirely 180 after reading the real chapter and saying that, overall, they really liked it? It... didn't really change any of the garbage that we saw in the spoilers? It doubled-down, in fact, on some of what people hated, and only added additional content that I can understand people might like or at least think looks cool, but... that's about it...

Personally, I thought the Moro absorbing himself into the earth was... interesting. I say interesting because it displays a cunningness on Moro's part and is an active choice he makes to prevent his body from decaying over the absorption of Merus' power. That's neat, I guess, but also, I feel it must be stressed, this is just like when he straight up ate 7-3. It looks cool, sure, but we're given no indication that he should be able to do anything like that, there is no set up, no foreshadowing, nothing, he just does it like it's a natural thing for him to do, like he's done it a million times before or something. Where did that come from? It's so bad.

There was almost nothing I enjoyed from a writing standpoint in this chapter, and, yes, while Goku was certainly the worst part of the chapter, the rest of it, the stuff that wasn't in the spoilers? It was also pretty bad stuff on the whole.

Not knocking anyone that did like it. In fact, after reading it, I was more surprised that I so thoroughly disliked so much of it. I'm just surprised so many people like it so much more after reading when they hated the spoilers so much.