"Dragon Ball Super (Manga)" Official Discussion Thread

[Tai Lung]

We didn't even know that Freeza was a prodigy until DBS. And yet that was only used as an excuse to make him stronger. In DBZ he was just an evil emperor who conquered planets. He doesn't have a backstory, we don't know anything about his race. I'm not saying that Moro has a backstory, we probably know even less about him than other villains. But it’s not like these other villains have exploited pasts or great motivations

Frieza still has a connection to the protagonist's past, having exterminated his race and indirectly caused him to come to earth ...
Cell at least acquires personality because he considers "conquering something x is boring" as making fun of the old goals of villains

including Dr gero who was the one who created it for that

[batistabus]

For what it's worth, here's Toriyama's Tsufurian design he submitted to the anime staff back in the day:


Looking at that sketch, Granola seems to fit in well enough with that aesthetic. The clothes aren't exact, but there are elements in common. The gun has a touch of steampunk. And then there's the hair, which I think is the most convincing element. The anime colors his clothes light green as well, although his hair is blonde.

When it comes to canon races in the DB world that look like Earthlings (including skin color and ears), we have Saiyans (if they lose their tails), Reacoome's race...and MAYBE a few Galactic Patrolmen that we don't have colors for. And then Tsufurians, who don't appear in the series, but have a design from the pen of Toriyama.

...

Ok, one drawing of one character that was never used in the manga is not a solid data point, but I'm preparing myself. I didn't want Broly, but that ended up fun enough. Let the conspiracy theories flow. Get ready for the "Bulma is a genius because she is a descendent of Tsufurians and that's why she has blue hair" retcon.

[Tai Lung]

I think remembering that "Tsufurian" are Lilliputians I don't think the granola design fits at all

[batistabus]

Before I get yelled at for going down this route, I just want to clarify that this is full speculation. We have virtually NOTHING to base these "theories" on. Anyone who is taking a guess is grasping at straws. I'm just having fun.

I think remembering that "Tsufurian" are Lilliputians I don't think the granola design fits at all

Good point, but I think that statement is flexible.

Planet Plant is a difficult planet to live on, as its gravity is unusually strong. However, two races live here. The majority of the inhabitants of Planet Plant are Tsufruian. Their bodies are small, but knowledge-wise they have a comparatively advanced culture and civilization. The other race has an unusually small population, but their bodies are large and strong. They are a primitive, warlike race called the Saiyans. Their biggest distinguishing characteristic is that they have tails, and every one of them seems to be a warrior.

The Saiyan's aren't all that big compared to other races, except in that they are muscular. While the anime made the Tsufurians tiny, Toriyama may have just meant skinny, although Granola isn't all that skinny, either. And of course, if it's not in Toriyama's series, none of Toriyama's behind-the-scenes tidbits are set in stone.

[Tai Lung]

ok it was just a "clarification" ... because for some reason "Tsufurian race" is confused with his creations baby, oren and kamin that are very different

[OLKv3]

Why do people think he's a tuffle? The survivor label?

[DevilKing99]

Why do people think he's a tuffle? The survivor label?

Might be, Only thing I know for sure is whoever the main villain is he's going to be MUI level, I see people suggest he's only going to be SSB level maybe in his base form or 1st form.

[DiscountDabi]

So My Total Granola Analysis based on what we have to glean from his design and the few scenes he had.

Spoiler:

Based on This Panel, I am going with the assumption that Oatmeel is an AI thats part of his eyepatch.

Spoiler:

Now this one is interesting. Now we see later on against the OG soldiers that Granola is capable of using Ki, so I wonder why he bothered to use a gun here. The only explanation is that this is a stun gun. Now why would a “Villian” use a stun gun instead of simply killing them. That makes me think he isn’t evil, and may be either an Anti-Hero Antagonist or a straight up good guy that helps the Dragon team against the true main threat.

Spoiler:

This seems to be a look at the inside of his eyepatch. If you look in the top corner, it seems to be the same type of text in scouters. The ear piece supports it. Seemingly either an Old Scouter or some-type of advanced scouter to account for a lost eye. Not enough information to make a conclusion on yet.

[Kinokima]

I also really like the eyepatch is an AI theory.

[Noah]

Man, Granola is such a stupid name... especially in my language (portuguese) that is the actual word for the thing (also in english too), was Toyotaro too lazy to figure it out a pun with this word? Imagine if Vegeta was called Vegetable

Anyway don't know why most people were upset, it was clear that Toyotaro would never set a story arc in EoZ, not only because he don't have the balls to do it, but also Toriyama doesn't want (yet) too.

And the difference is you can't really ignore the direction of the manga since it's billed as an official canon continuation, and not just random non-canon stuff people can ignore like Heroes, the stories in the videogames, GT. etc. There's a reason people don't get angry over stuff that happens in Heroes or the other videogames simply because...it doesn't matter. It's non-canon stuff you can enjoy for fun or ignore. When something is an "official" continuation as part of the main canon it's a different story.

Don't be silly girl, In the end it doesn't matter how many next stories will happen on this series, the original manga is a completed work that was finished 25 years ago, it remains untouchable to this day and nothing will change that. So people can pretty much stick with it and ignore everything else that came after or consider Super/GT was official sequels, it really doesn't matter at all.

"Looking back on it, Battle of Gods was a lot of fun for me, but there wasn’t much action, and maybe not enough fan service".

This is where everything went down hill for modern DB, fan service. The reason BOG worked so well is the same reason the original manga worked, it was Toriyama's story. He was telling us the story he wanted to be told, he didn't worry about what the fans or the suits wanted. The BOG movie is proof that modern DB can be just as good as the original. The problem now is that everyone involved are more concerned about telling the stories fans want told, rather than the stories they themselves want to tell.

You should get your facts straight mate, IIRC BoG was not 100% supervised by Toriyama, but RoF was and it was a terrible movie. Don't be the guy who think everything Toriyama touches becomes gold, because that's certainly not what happens.

Imagine if "the Dragon Room" were given even 1/20th the amount of funding that Marvel Comics as a whole publishing company gets and Shueisha started ordering multiple different manga set in the Dragon Ball universe that were allowed to explore places and stories apart from Goku and Vegeta's mainline Dragon Ball adventures. New writers, new artists, new books and a whole slate of interconnected narratives that expand the lore and focus on other characters. I for one think that it's past time for, at least, a Z-Fighters book, centered on Earth and on Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, sometimes 17 and 18, Yamcha, Tien and Chiaotsu, even Roshi and Bulma. There's so much wealth of storytelling they could tap back into with an Earth-centric book that's just being cast to the wayside right now.

But we could even get a book centering around the Universe 6 Saiyans, that would be sick, and another that centers around the Pride Troopers. The possibilities are literally limitless, but they either can't or won't go there.

I would love that, Dragon Ball has the potential to be something like Star Wars too (in a matter of world building), but as the latter I could only see that happening if it was bought by Disney lol

Everything will be filler so long as they don't go beyond the End of Z. I have been saying this for years and it is inevitable. Everything is filler, because you already know the protagonists will win. That's what makes it filler. Only the Future Trunks arc was not filler, because it took place in the Future timeline, which did not have plot armour from the End of Z. So you did not know who was going to win, and indeed look what happened

You talk like Goku and Vegeta who fought Black and Zamasu were their future counterparts, the only tension generated by this arc was if Trunks would in fact protect his timeline, but of course we knew they would win as the Saiyans were also fine by EoZ.

In Z, there were 7 years between the Cell saga and Majin Buu saga.

You know, they could always make a seperate season about that time period too, don't let them read this

Sure, it would be cool to explore this time skip in between arcs, but remember the whole plot point of Gohan being weaker in the Boo arc was because there were absolutely no threat except Bojack to the Earth in those years.

[Alruneia]

Man, Granola is such a stupid name... especially in my language (portuguese) that is the actual word for the thing (also in english too), was Toyotaro too lazy to figure it out a pun with this word?

There is a pun, it just doesn't work in English (and plenty of other languages as well I suppose). It works in Japanese, though, which is probably all Toyotaro and Toriyama really care about. I wrote about the trouble with the name pun when the teaser was released last week:

Also, Granola's name is gonna be messy for the English-speaking audience, I just know it. グラノラ does directly get transliterated to "granola", but it's not pronounced like the actual word "granola", because that's written as グラノーラ. (The pun is that the ー has been omitted. That goes for Oatmil's name as well.) The o sound is different, so instead of it being gra-noh-la, it's like... gran-ola or something. I don't know how to describe it properly. I know it's gonna trip people up, though.

[Kaiser Gogeta]

Granola is a Tsufurian and OG73 is Super's version of Hatchhyack?

[Matches Malone]

You should get your facts straight mate, IIRC BoG was not 100% supervised by Toriyama, but RoF was and it was a terrible movie. Don't be the guy who think everything Toriyama touches becomes gold, because that's certainly not what happens.

"in the midst of making partial changes, I ended up making it into an almost completely different story". This was Toriyama's comment regarding his participation in BOG. The reason BOG works is because he wasn't worried about fan service, he just wanted to tell a good story. In terms of RF, where did I say it wasn't his movie ? I said the main issue with it and the stories that followed were Toriyama's willingness to include fan service. I never said anything about it or its sequels not being written by him, or everything he writes being gold. You should learn to read "mate".

[emperior]

So My Total Granola Analysis based on what we have to glean from his design and the few scenes he had.

Spoiler:

Based on This Panel, I am going with the assumption that Oatmeel is an AI thats part of his eyepatch.

Spoiler:

Now this one is interesting. Now we see later on against the OG soldiers that Granola is capable of using Ki, so I wonder why he bothered to use a gun here. The only explanation is that this is a stun gun. Now why would a “Villian” use a stun gun instead of simply killing them. That makes me think he isn’t evil, and may be either an Anti-Hero Antagonist or a straight up good guy that helps the Dragon team against the true main threat.

Spoiler:

This seems to be a look at the inside of his eyepatch. If you look in the top corner, it seems to be the same type of text in scouters. The ear piece supports it. Seemingly either an Old Scouter or some-type of advanced scouter to account for a lost eye. Not enough information to make a conclusion on yet.

Very nice analysis.

Another thing which would support the theory that Granolah won’t be a villain is the fact the arc is named after him. Super’s arcs haven’t been named after villains up until now, if I remember correctly. Though this may be an exception and a return to a naming scheme similar to Z’s arcs.

I like the idea of Granolah being a tsufurian survivor (or an half-breed... maybe some tsufuru actually procreated with a Saiyan?) and wouldn’t mind it if Oatmeel turned out to be just the AI (would make sense if Granolah is the lone /descendant of his race).

If anything I hope he is a tsufuru so that we can get more lore about the Saiyan-Tsufuru war which must have canonically happened as Saiyans occupied a new Planet after escaping
Also, with Goku having now mastered UI this might as well be the arc where Vegeta gets to shine, and if Granolah is a Tsufuru then he should be tied more to the Vegeta family as the one who started and won the war must have been an ancestor of Vegeta.

[Matches Malone]

Now this one is interesting. Now we see later on against the OG soldiers that Granola is capable of using Ki, so I wonder why he bothered to use a gun here. The only explanation is that this is a stun gun. Now why would a “villain” use a stun gun instead of simply killing them. That makes me think he isn’t evil, and may be either an Anti-Hero Antagonist or a straight up good guy that helps the Dragon team against the true main threat.

I agree with this, I think the real villain of the arc is being kept hidden. He may be shown at the end of next month's chapter or February's. What I'm interested in is how 7-3 factors into this. I wonder if he can be modified to work with the good guys instead this time.

[Magnificent Ponta]

If I had to speculate (I know, my success rate isn't high), it feels like Granolah has some sort of hard-edged, 'virtuous thief' vibe going on. I guess we'll see. But since he has already been characterised as a "survivor", I figure this point will feature heavily in his overall motivations for whatever comes next.

[Matches Malone]

Since he has already been characterised as a "survivor", I figure this point will feature heavily in his overall motivations for whatever comes next.

It definitely will, as I assume what ever he survived will be the main focus of this arc.

[Magnificent Ponta]

Since he has already been characterised as a "survivor", I figure this point will feature heavily in his overall motivations for whatever comes next.

It definitely will, as I assume what ever he survived will be the main focus of this arc.

Yes, that's likely; but I also mean that whatever happens in the arc, Granolah being a 'survivor' (of whatever it is) will probably drive his character actions, and may stand behind the hard-edged vibe I'm feeling. Being a survivor probably means he'll be willing to 'do what it takes' to keep surviving, which will probably make him look pretty unpleasant at some point before the arc is over.

[Matches Malone]

Yes, that's likely; but I also mean that whatever happens in the arc, Granolah being a 'survivor' (of whatever it is) will probably drive his character actions, and may stand behind the hard-edged vibe I'm feeling. Being a survivor probably means he'll be willing to 'do what it takes' to keep surviving, which will probably make him look pretty unpleasant at some point before the arc is over.

I'd like him to play a similar role to the one Vegeta played on Namek, where he's only out for himself and is willing to use everyone and everything to gain the upper hand.

[AndLad92]

Does anyone know whether anything new got announced at Jump Festa regarding Dragon Ball Super?