"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[precita]

The villains from GT aren't really that popular to be re-introduced in canon. As I said there's a small chance the whole Shadow Dragons concept could be re-invented, but I imagine all the dragons would have completely different designs and roles if they were.

The most popular movie villains were always Broly, Cooler, and for some reason Janemba. But I dunno I don't see the latter two becoming canon. There's also the possibility of making Android 21 canon but I find that unlikely as well, but at least she has a better chance since Toriyama designed her.

[SupremeKai25]

The villains of GT are all trash, scrap them.

- Baby: Some GT fans have this idea that Baby is meant to be a "sympathetic" villain, but that's so wrong. At no point do the writers ever try to frame him in a sympathetic way, he's just as generic evil as 99% of the other Dragon Ball villains (I'll let you figure out who's in the 1%). He has no character or personality and his voice is so annoying.
- Super 17: Need I say more? I feel like they already "rebooted" him with the role 17 played in the ToP arc anyway.
- Shadow Dragons: The concept is intriguing but the execution is just... No. Just No. They all have forgettable designs, personality, motivations, techniques, everything.

If the writers wanted to recycle a villain, they should just make Hearts canon:

- Decent design;
- Entertaining personality;
- Well-known VA (doesn't he voice the famous villain Dio from Jojo, one of the most popular anime in the world?);
- Most importantly: GOOD fucking motivations.

Or they can recycle Cooler, but that would be sooo boring. I mean, Frieza already came back twice in Super, Frost exists, I don't think we need a THIRD villain from the Frieza's race.

[Alruneia]

Personally I'd say it's about a month too early to start wondering about what's going to happen next. Thanks to the Moro battle ending so conclusively in chapter 66, I think chapter 67 will be spent not only on calming down after the Moro arc, but also on setting up what comes next. If I had to guess, that would be done through Beerus and Whis' visit to the Grand Minister, though there are other options too, like... having the arc start out of nowhere much like this one did. (This is if Moro doesn't somehow resurface.) So until that chapter comes out, or at least drafts for it do (if they're going to continue releasing those, which it does seem like they will), we'd pretty much just be making blind guesses.

Or they can recycle Cooler, but that would be sooo boring. I mean, Frieza already came back twice in Super, Frost exists, I don't think we need a THIRD villain from the Frieza's race.

For me, the appeal of a canon Cooler lies in the fact that Frieza and Frost are pretty similar, with Cooler having the potential to act completely differently. Unlike Frieza and Frost, who are scheme-y and underhanded (metrics may vary based on if it's the manga or the anime), so Cooler could be a more direct and "honourable" kind of evil. He would also have history with Frieza (if the reboot would make it so that he isn't Frieza's big brother, then don't bother bringing him back), so we could get a little bit of backstory there, along with Frieza himself being put in a new kind of situation, which could be refreshing to see (people did mostly like ToP Frieza, after all). To cut it short, bringing Cooler into Super is an idea that has a lot of potential, but it's a delicate idea that can easily be completely wasted.

[Xeogran]

but at least she has a better chance since Toriyama designed her.

Weak argument, Mira and Towa are designed by him too. But if they ever appear in any canon, then the timeline is screwed forever

[Magnificent Ponta]

Personally I'd say it's about a month too early to start wondering about what's going to happen next. Thanks to the Moro battle ending so conclusively in chapter 66, I think chapter 67 will be spent not only on calming down after the Moro arc, but also on setting up what comes next. If I had to guess, that would be done through Beerus and Whis' visit to the Grand Minister, though there are other options too, like... having the arc start out of nowhere much like this one did. (This is if Moro doesn't somehow resurface.) So until that chapter comes out, or at least drafts for it do (if they're going to continue releasing those, which it does seem like they will), we'd pretty much just be making blind guesses.

Blind guesses?? Don't mind if I do!

I keep thinking that the likeliest shock that could come in Chapter 67 without changing the ultimate Dragon Ball status quo would be for Beerus to be erased...just a thought I can't really shake.

[SupremeKai25]

Personally I'd say it's about a month too early to start wondering about what's going to happen next. Thanks to the Moro battle ending so conclusively in chapter 66, I think chapter 67 will be spent not only on calming down after the Moro arc, but also on setting up what comes next. If I had to guess, that would be done through Beerus and Whis' visit to the Grand Minister, though there are other options too, like... having the arc start out of nowhere much like this one did. (This is if Moro doesn't somehow resurface.) So until that chapter comes out, or at least drafts for it do (if they're going to continue releasing those, which it does seem like they will), we'd pretty much just be making blind guesses.

Blind guesses?? Don't mind if I do!

I keep thinking that the likeliest shock that could come in Chapter 67 without changing the ultimate Dragon Ball status quo would be for Beerus to be erased...just a thought I can't really shake.

I actually had that thought earlier today. Toyotaro should end this arc in a shocking plot twist, by using the second half of the next chapter to go from Earth to the palace of Zeno, where Beerus is in the process of being erased for his countless failures.

Let us not forget that if both Beerus and the Galactic Patrol had been doing their job better, then Moro would have never broken free, regained his youth, and driven Merus into committing suicide. All of this mess can ultimately be traced back to Beerus and his incompetence. The time has come to punish that cat, he is clearly not fit for the job.

[Koitsukai]

Personally I'd say it's about a month too early to start wondering about what's going to happen next. Thanks to the Moro battle ending so conclusively in chapter 66, I think chapter 67 will be spent not only on calming down after the Moro arc, but also on setting up what comes next. If I had to guess, that would be done through Beerus and Whis' visit to the Grand Minister, though there are other options too, like... having the arc start out of nowhere much like this one did. (This is if Moro doesn't somehow resurface.) So until that chapter comes out, or at least drafts for it do (if they're going to continue releasing those, which it does seem like they will), we'd pretty much just be making blind guesses.

Blind guesses?? Don't mind if I do!

I keep thinking that the likeliest shock that could come in Chapter 67 without changing the ultimate Dragon Ball status quo would be for Beerus to be erased...just a thought I can't really shake.

I actually had that thought earlier today. Toyotaro should end this arc in a shocking plot twist, by using the second half of the next chapter to go from Earth to the palace of Zeno, where Beerus is in the process of being erased for his countless failures.

Let us not forget that if both Beerus and the Galactic Patrol had been doing their job better, then Moro would have never broken free, regained his youth, and driven Merus into committing suicide. All of this mess can ultimately be traced back to Beerus and his incompetence. The time has come to punish that cat, he is clearly not fit for the job.

I read the whole arc the other day, but IIRC there's a statement from Beerus saying that he is pleased that people like Moro are around to do his job for him, or something like that.

[LoganForkHands73]

Not one for predictions usually, but I have a solid conviction that Beerus and Whis being summoned is gonna turn out to have nothing to do with Merus. I saw someone's suggestion that there could be something wrong with Zen'o, like a godly plague or some other threat that needs to be dealt with, not just by Beerus but by every Hakaishin. There's no real evidence for this, but it's a cool idea. Beerus will obviously be shitting his pants either way.

[Noah]

If the anime chose to animate this arc, it will be a slog because this arc is badly pace and needs cut. Although what is annoying is that for all the bad pacing, Toyo did a bad job developing Goku and Merus' relationship and instead focused too much on Vegeta who for the role he played in the end wasn't justified. Like the chapter Toyo spent with Vegeta fighting Zarbon 2.0 could have gone into showing Goku and Merus bonding. Or just the training in general since Toyo never explained why Goku got more out of Merus compared to Whis.

I have the feeling that Toei might play smart this one: they could not only abridge but also skip this arc entirely and do their own thing after Broly retelling. Because in the end this whole thing didn't acomplished anything.
Having Vegeta to redeem himself for his crimes in Namek was a nice touch? Yes, but it feels a bit fan servicey to me. It was cool to have a angel from an deleted universe using an undercover as a Galactic Patrol agent? Sure, but it was developed poorly. Vegeta training in Yardrat was necessary? Not really, I don't think him pursuing the same methods of Goku past trainings a good thing as he already done once. Also having Goku to master the Ultra Instinct through training and Oob to show up having God Ki could really be done in any other arc that people would not miss this one.

Personally Moro's best form BY FAR was his "Angel 7-3 fusion" form:

Spoiler:

Oh sure it is. A Cell/Hit with horns, how original... If Toyotaro went for this aproach, it could be somewhat better:

Spoiler:

Toriyama was heavily involved in RoF, even more than in BoG. In fact, RoF was the first time that he actually wrote the script for a Dragon Ball movie (the BoG script was written by Yusuke Watanabe)

Which is a shame, cause it is pretty bad. I read once in this forum a opinion that if wasn't for Toriyama directors in the original serialization, DB might not be that good as it is.I think it's an exaggeration, Toriyama is no superb writer that's a fact, but he's not all terrible either. But seeing how RoF was mediocre, I believe why people could think this way.

[SupremeKai25]

Oh sure it is. A Cell/Hit with horns, how original... If Toyotaro went for this aproach, it could be somewhat better:

It doesn't have to be original, it has to be good. You think Cell has an original design? He's just a bug with humanoid features. You can simplify anything if you want to argue in bad faith.

I, personally, much prefer someone with a humanoid face than an ugly goat face, but maybe that's just me.

[WittyUsername]

Moro’s transformed state looks too similar to Perfect Cell, which only adds to the problem of him being a rehash of past villains. Mind you, I don’t particularly care for the goat design either, but that at least looks distinct for the franchise.

[Magnificent Ponta]

On the subject of Moro's design and its "similarity" to Perfect Cell - Really, haven't we been here before?

Whether you think Moro's OG73-I absorbed state is a good design or not, how much of it is actually similar to Perfect Cell? Leave aside the faces for a minute, which are a tiny part of any design, and look at it afresh - how much is actually similar?:



I genuinely can't see anything, except for them both having a humanoid shape. That's really not good enough to rag on a design for being 'derivative', whatever one may think of its merits.

[Hugo Boss]

It also strikes me odd that so many people cite Perfect Cell in the design aspect, yet I think his upper body looks much more like Coola’s base form. Perhaps it is because how similar the stories are? To an certain extent Merus played a similar role to No.16. They were just executed differently. Not that this is a bad thing though.

[SupremeKai25]

I don't care about any of those comparisons and never did. I just think that Moro with a human face AND goat horns looks better. He looks more "diabolical", if you will. In countless stories, demons are portrayed as actually handsome creatures, not too different from humans, yet they obviously retain the horns to indicate their true, unsettling nature. Same thing here with Moro. As I was saying, he looks like a human, but he also doesn't look like a human at the same time. The goat horns coupled with the human face make him look more unsettling.

See, just because you're evil doesn't mean you have to look like an ugly beast.

A shame that he quickly turned into a disgusting Earth blob, but then again it's trend for most Dragon Ball villains to be ugly as shit.

[Jack Bz]

I think it's a totally fair criticism. Cell, Hit, 7-3, Moro 7-3 and (mostly first form) Freeza all have very similar faces with the dual lines running down the cheeks (though Freeza looks the most different with his different nose and lips). With Cell and Freeza there were supposed to be similarities, but Super has now added 3 more antagonists with a face almost just like Cell's.

The reason why people are focussing primarily on the face of Moro is because that is the most drastic change to the design. He already had a unique looking face/design for a dragon ball villain and they changed it to look more like past antagonists in the final hour, and more directly like Cell than any other Cell lookalike. A small change can have a big effect on how a character comes off, and I'd argue the face is possibly the most important aspect.

[LoganForkHands73]

Moro's humanoid form grew on me, surprisingly. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first but I was quickly won over by that panel of him glaring from the side to Vegeta. I think the main issue is how clunkily the transformation was implemented which lead to the inevitable comparisons with Perfect Cell. I've pointed it out before but it was a classic Toriyama move for Toyotaro to get rid of Moro's annoying outward-pointing ram horns in favour of something far easier to draw regularly, lol.

I remember being more vitriolic against Moro's younger goat forms. He lost a crucial intimidation factor when he started de-ageing, though his Hit-faced form regained that air of menace.

[Magnificent Ponta]

A small change can have a big effect on how a character comes off, and I'd argue the face is possibly the most important aspect.

Between Humans in the real world, where facial recognition between otherwise pretty similar-looking individuals is key to identification, sure; but we're in Dragon World, where we've got dog-men, bug-men, slug-men and goat-men - the expression of difference is rather wider between beings, so I'd say it's more warranted to look at the whole thing rather than zeroing in on and privileging a single detail, even in the more limited context of saying what has changed most (which it's important to stress that, yourself aside, isn't a caveat that critics have bothered to include when discussing this design). Picking on one similarity to argue that the design is wholly derivative when basically everything else about it is significantly different is, I'd argue, an attempt to find 'derivativeness' for the sake of looking for something to criticise.

[BWri]

On the subject of Moro's design and its "similarity" to Perfect Cell - Really, haven't we been here before?

Whether you think Moro's OG73-I absorbed state is a good design or not, how much of it is actually similar to Perfect Cell? Leave aside the faces for a minute, which are a tiny part of any design, and look at it afresh - how much is actually similar?:



I genuinely can't see anything, except for them both having a humanoid shape. That's really not good enough to rag on a design for being 'derivative', whatever one may think of its merits.

The face is the whole problem. If he had his goat face no one would complain about this.

[Magnificent Ponta]

On the subject of Moro's design and its "similarity" to Perfect Cell - Really, haven't we been here before?

Whether you think Moro's OG73-I absorbed state is a good design or not, how much of it is actually similar to Perfect Cell? Leave aside the faces for a minute, which are a tiny part of any design, and look at it afresh - how much is actually similar?:



I genuinely can't see anything, except for them both having a humanoid shape. That's really not good enough to rag on a design for being 'derivative', whatever one may think of its merits.

The face is the whole problem. If he had his goat face no one would complain about this.

To be clear, my issue isn't with people not liking the design, or even with them thinking that the change here swapped the unique for the generic, in terms of facial features specifically, and this being a downgrade from what we had.

But that's not the critique I actually see from the vast majority of people on here.

The critique I see is a blanket 'He's a Perfect Cell Rip-Off' (or identical sentiment wrapped up in slightly different verbiage), parroted like it's a self-evident truth instead of an extremely slanted position that relies on ignoring 90% of the design and privileging a single feature in one's appraisal for...no real reason, at all, as far as I can see.

This willingness to sidestep the whole truth and not letting it get in the way of a criticism leads me to conclude that often when this argument pops up, it's simply being pursued in bad faith by people who already don't like the series, looking for something else to bash.

[Gt91]

On the subject of Moro's design and its "similarity" to Perfect Cell - Really, haven't we been here before?

Whether you think Moro's OG73-I absorbed state is a good design or not, how much of it is actually similar to Perfect Cell? Leave aside the faces for a minute, which are a tiny part of any design, and look at it afresh - how much is actually similar?:



I genuinely can't see anything, except for them both having a humanoid shape. That's really not good enough to rag on a design for being 'derivative', whatever one may think of its merits.

The face is the whole problem. If he had his goat face no one would complain about this.

To be clear, my issue isn't with people not liking the design, or even with them thinking that the change here swapped the unique for the generic, in terms of facial features specifically, and this being a downgrade from what we had.

But that's not the critique I actually see from the vast majority of people on here.

The critique I see is a blanket 'He's a Perfect Cell Rip-Off' (or identical sentiment wrapped up in slightly different verbiage), parroted like it's a self-evident truth instead of an extremely slanted position that relies on ignoring 90% of the design and privileging a single feature in one's appraisal for...no real reason, at all, as far as I can see.

This willingness to sidestep the whole truth and not letting it get in the way of a criticism leads me to conclude that often when this argument pops up, it's simply being pursued in bad faith by people who already don't like the series, looking for something else to bash.

I agree with everything you said.
The same thing happened with the universe 6 saga, when people were saying that hit was a new piccolo (maybe for his head? I don't know).
Nonsense.