Has the focus on Saiyan in the series ruined the entire franchise?

[Majin Buu]

Way too much people in the fandom use the "Dragonball is not ensemble" excuse as a way to deflect valid criticism of the lack of focus, development and general utility most of supporting cast gets in the series. When you write a recurring character in any story regardless of its genre and whether or not said character is a protagonist, you are suppose to flesh them out and utilize them as much as its possible and if not then permanently get rid of them instead of just pointlessly having them around doing nothing.

"Dragonball is Goku's story" is no excuse for writing other characters poorly.

"Dragon Ball is Goku's story" is a rebuttal to the argument many fans make that Goku shouldn't be the main character anymore, because many fans mistakenly claim that Dragon Ball is an ensemble because it has such a large supporting cast; it's not though, because so much of the story revolves around Goku and his actions.

You're just twisting that to be about deflecting valid criticisms, creating a strawman you can attack.

[super michael]

C17 being able to match SSJ3/SSB was badly handled, especially since it was mentioned that C17 doesn't train at all.

The problem with DBS is that even light training at a small amount of time can lead to matching SSJ3/SSB tier, which is something that never used to happen in DB/DBZ.

Krillin generic normal gym training leading him to have better feats than Gotenks that was really bad. Heck Master Roshi in DB is harder training compared to what everyone does in DBS minus Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and Gohan.
Freeza is the king at being lazy. Just 4 months beating Tagoma = above SSB.

[Zephyr]

Not really? This is fiction. The author can introduce whatever they want to power someone up, and make it logistically exclusive to them in any number of ways. Or, just have them still be far behind bigger hitters like Goku, and still play a role anyway. Which is what happened.

"If the author wants to utilize lampshading and overall bad/nonsensical writing, that's their prerogative" is a terrible argument.

I don't know what that has to do with what I wrote.

[Skar]

I wouldn't say the focus on the Saiyans necessarily ruined the franchise and might have to do more with the nature of the series. The power creep in DB meant that fewer and fewer characters could contribute anything as the Saiyans grew stronger. I think some other shonen try to avoid this by having less of a power creep and more focus on strategy and techniques.

Marvel and DC handle it a little differently since they have huge universes with varying levels of strength for the villains so all the heroes have enough to keep them occupied. Every major hero has their own rogue gallery and several storylines could be happening at once so godly heroes like Superman or Thor might be off world or busy to deal with every threat. In DB, threats happen one at a time so usually the weaker characters either get to fight some henchmen or distracting the main villain until Goku arrives. I don't think this is an issue and just the way the story is handled.

[Hugo Boss]

I wouldn’t say the franchise is ruined, far from that. But as a fan I have nitpicks.

For context I have some criticism about ideas introduced in some story arcs, particularly ones that try to bring back the old cast instead of seize the potential of newer non-Saiyan characters. Part of that is Toriyama’s fault.

RoF Arc - I dislike bringing back Krillin, Tien and Roshi to active roles. He could have used Piccolo, Gohan, No. 18, Majin Boo and Jaco, specially those last 3 to introduce new character dynamic. SSGSS shouldn’t have been introduced so soon, I would have waited to use it to promote the anime.

ToP Arc - 10 fighters per team was too much in my opinion and forced the staff to repeat the same fan service from RoF and creating so much irrelevant new characters just to fill a spot. Probably to make the stakes even higher, I would probably cut Piccolo and No. 18, and make Majin Boo and No. 17 play strategic or supportive roles, healer and stamina-bank for example. Keeping Goku, Vegeta, Freeza, Gohan, No. 17 and Majin Boo, or perhaps even finding a way of leaving Vegeta out temporarily (a trap from another universe) to force them to recruit Freeza, as anyone else wouldn’t suffice. Piccolo would play a mentor role during Gohan’s preparation and Krillin and Roshi would play a similar role with Goku’s. Saving Vegeta’s evolved blue for future story arcs. A few adjustments I think would make all this stuff a little more interesting for me.

[super michael]

I wouldn't say the focus on the Saiyans necessarily ruined the franchise and might have to do more with the nature of the series. The power creep in DB meant that fewer and fewer characters could contribute anything as the Saiyans grew stronger. I think some other shonen try to avoid this by having less of a power creep and more focus on strategy and techniques.

Marvel and DC handle it a little differently since they have huge universes with varying levels of strength for the villains so all the heroes have enough to keep them occupied. Every major hero has their own rogue gallery and several storylines could be happening at once so godly heroes like Superman or Thor might be off world or busy to deal with every threat. In DB, threats happen one at a time so usually the weaker characters either get to fight some henchmen or distracting the main villain until Goku arrives. I don't think this is an issue and just the way the story is handled.

In My Hero Academia everyone in the class does hard training, regardless what powers they have. They all have their unique training also, but we see how challenging it is. Their power increase looks good thanks to that. We even see the villains trained which they gain new powers.

Dragon Ball Super they should only make huge power gain, if their training is challenging and cool. However the only character we see train hard are Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Piccolo. The others like Krillin don't deserve huge power increase.

In DB and DBZ (Saiyan Saga - Namek Saga) the humans got the same gains as Goku, since they did the same training as Goku. Once the humans stopped doing the same training as Goku then they stopped getting huge power increase. Yamcha and Krillin refused to train with Goku.

Basically the Z fighters don't dare use the ROSAT or train with Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Piccolo who are the top 4 fighters on earth.

[kemuri07]

Way too much people in the fandom use the "Dragonball is not ensemble" excuse as a way to deflect valid criticism of the lack of focus, development and general utility most of supporting cast gets in the series. When you write a recurring character in any story regardless of its genre and whether or not said character is a protagonist, you are suppose to flesh them out and utilize them as much as its possible and if not then permanently get rid of them instead of just pointlessly having them around doing nothing.

"Dragonball is Goku's story" is no excuse for writing other characters poorly.

"Dragon Ball is Goku's story" is a rebuttal to the argument many fans make that Goku shouldn't be the main character anymore, because many fans mistakenly claim that Dragon Ball is an ensemble because it has such a large supporting cast; it's not though, because so much of the story revolves around Goku and his actions.

You're just twisting that to be about deflecting valid criticisms, creating a strawman you can attack.

So yeah..no. That's not how this works. I mean how do you explain Dragon Ball Z, a show that spends large amount of time on characters other than Goku? How does that not make the franchise an ensemble. Its misinterpreting what that word means, and I'm just baffled that some people don't understand that. Dragon Ball is a story that focuses on Goku while also being an ensemble. Like how One Piece is a show about Luffy's drive to be Pirate King or Yu Yu Hakusho is about Yusuke being a spirit detective--none of that dismisses the fact that both of these shows are also ensemble pieces with a strong supporting cast.

Again, the problem that people have with Goku is that he's fucking stagnate. He doesn't grow because his entire character arch effectively ended in Z when he beat Freeza and went from a low class Saiyan to the strongest in the galaxy. Aside from that, he hasn't change for nearly 30 years. And here's the thing: that's not necessarily a problem. One Punch Man is basically about a Goku character who has already achieved the goals of a shounen main character type off screen. What makes OPM work is that the story has a wide variety of supporting characters that Saitama can bounce off of, revealing different aspects of both his and their personalities.

Regardless of whether you believe that DB is an ensemble, it does not take away from argument I'm making: There is no strong supporting cast that, well, support the main character. This is where a brunt of the criticisms come from. Because of the power creep which essentially locks most of the cast to background characters who merely stare in awe at Goku and Vegeta's power, there's no one who these two can bounce off of. So its just the same dynamic again and again. Its why people are bored with the current arc, why I don't think the Super anime works at all. Saying "well Goku is the main character" is a poor argument for the franchise's narrative flaws.

[Cursed Lemon]

I don't know what that has to do with what I wrote.

"This writing is dumb."

"It's not dumb, it's 𝒻𝒾𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃."

Fiction can be dumb.

[LoganForkHands73]

So yeah..no. That's not how this works. I mean how do you explain Dragon Ball Z, a show that spends large amount of time on characters other than Goku? How does that not make the franchise an ensemble. Its misinterpreting what that word means, and I'm just baffled that some people don't understand that. Dragon Ball is a story that focuses on Goku while also being an ensemble. Like how One Piece is a show about Luffy's drive to be Pirate King or Yu Yu Hakusho is about Yusuke being a spirit detective--none of that dismisses the fact that both of these shows are also ensemble pieces with a strong supporting cast.

To me, the defining feature of an ensemble piece is that there are no clear distinctions between "main" and "supporting" cast members. In concept, ensemble series deal with a bunch of equally "main" characters. A great example would be the movie Clue, where there is no single main character between Ms. Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, Mr. Wadsworth, etc. Game of Thrones is of course another famous example, as Jon Snow is no more important than Daenerys or Tyrion.

Even One Piece kinda stretches it a bit since Luffy is so blatantly marked as the leader of the pack and the whole thing mainly follows his journey, but you can say it develops into the spirit of an ensemble series as the cast expands and they all sail the high seas together.

Until Vegeta definitively became an equal face of the franchise as of the revival, Goku has always been front-and-centre of Dragon Ball's overall story. Yeah, there have been stretches where the supporting cast make more of a statement, but how many people would really be convinced in saying that Kuririn is THE main character of Dragon Ball on par with Goku because he took the briefly reigns in the Namek arc? Nah, it's always Goku, and the rest are secondary or tertiary to him. Even the arcs where he's dead or incapacitated are still driven by his absence while everyone prays for his return.

That's definitely not to say that I disagree with the idea of giving other characters more spotlight. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't want that. The supporting cast give Dragon Ball its texture and memorability. But, well, it's in the name that they're ultimately there to support Goku (and Vegeta) in the central storyline.

[MyVisionity]

Basically don't do stupid shit like have the Earthlings fight in the ToP. Just get rid of those characters altogether if you're going to do the traditional train/get stronger/fight plots. They can be replaced. Or just dropped leaving the rest.

[super michael]

Basically don't do stupid shit like have the Earthlings fight in the ToP. Just get rid of those characters altogether if you're going to do the traditional train/get stronger/fight plots. They can be replaced. Or just dropped leaving the rest.

In Yu Yu Hakusho the characters who got strong did things that were cool such as these below:

• Yasuke mentioned his training with Genkai and while fighting in the tournament he had
  Spoiler:

  Spirit Cuff to train his body. He got Genkai spirit orb.

• Hiei trained to gain better control his
  Spoiler:

  Dragon Darkness Flame, which we see injured his arm.

• Kuwabara trained to gain better control of his
  Spoiler:

  spirit sword and was given the Trial Sword to train his attack. Then later his body spirit powers goes through some changes, which his powers

  Spoiler:

  temporary disappeared until it came back but better.

• Kurama used the
  Spoiler:

  Fruit of the Previous Life to gain access to his old powers

  Spoiler:

  Yoko Kurama

Before in DB/DBZ there was creativity to everyone training, which is what other anime has like MHA and Yuyu Hakusho. That is something that DBS lacks when it comes to characters like the humans.

[ABED]

Way too much people in the fandom use the "Dragonball is not ensemble" excuse as a way to deflect valid criticism of the lack of focus, development and general utility most of supporting cast gets in the series. When you write a recurring character in any story regardless of its genre and whether or not said character is a protagonist, you are suppose to flesh them out and utilize them as much as its possible and if not then permanently get rid of them instead of just pointlessly having them around doing nothing.

"Dragonball is Goku's story" is no excuse for writing other characters poorly.

"Dragon Ball is Goku's story" is a rebuttal to the argument many fans make that Goku shouldn't be the main character anymore, because many fans mistakenly claim that Dragon Ball is an ensemble because it has such a large supporting cast; it's not though, because so much of the story revolves around Goku and his actions.

You're just twisting that to be about deflecting valid criticisms, creating a strawman you can attack.

So yeah..no. That's not how this works. I mean how do you explain Dragon Ball Z, a show that spends large amount of time on characters other than Goku? How does that not make the franchise an ensemble. Its misinterpreting what that word means, and I'm just baffled that some people don't understand that. Dragon Ball is a story that focuses on Goku while also being an ensemble. Like how One Piece is a show about Luffy's drive to be Pirate King or Yu Yu Hakusho is about Yusuke being a spirit detective--none of that dismisses the fact that both of these shows are also ensemble pieces with a strong supporting cast.

Again, the problem that people have with Goku is that he's fucking stagnate. He doesn't grow because his entire character arch effectively ended in Z when he beat Freeza and went from a low class Saiyan to the strongest in the galaxy. Aside from that, he hasn't change for nearly 30 years. And here's the thing: that's not necessarily a problem. One Punch Man is basically about a Goku character who has already achieved the goals of a shounen main character type off screen. What makes OPM work is that the story has a wide variety of supporting characters that Saitama can bounce off of, revealing different aspects of both his and their personalities.

Regardless of whether you believe that DB is an ensemble, it does not take away from argument I'm making: There is no strong supporting cast that, well, support the main character. This is where a brunt of the criticisms come from. Because of the power creep which essentially locks most of the cast to background characters who merely stare in awe at Goku and Vegeta's power, there's no one who these two can bounce off of. So its just the same dynamic again and again. Its why people are bored with the current arc, why I don't think the Super anime works at all. Saying "well Goku is the main character" is a poor argument for the franchise's narrative flaws.

It isn't power creep that's the issue. It's fiction, there's some way or some McGuffin that can easily give characters more power. It's not even power that's the issue, it's simply giving the characters more to do that can further their story and doesn't necessitate them being strong enough to bring down the big bad.

And who is saying "Goku is the main character" as an excuse for its flaws?

[NickLord]

"Dragon Ball is Goku's story" is a rebuttal to the argument many fans make that Goku shouldn't be the main character anymore, because many fans mistakenly claim that Dragon Ball is an ensemble because it has such a large supporting cast; it's not though, because so much of the story revolves around Goku and his actions.

You're just twisting that to be about deflecting valid criticisms, creating a strawman you can attack.

So yeah..no. That's not how this works. I mean how do you explain Dragon Ball Z, a show that spends large amount of time on characters other than Goku? How does that not make the franchise an ensemble. Its misinterpreting what that word means, and I'm just baffled that some people don't understand that. Dragon Ball is a story that focuses on Goku while also being an ensemble. Like how One Piece is a show about Luffy's drive to be Pirate King or Yu Yu Hakusho is about Yusuke being a spirit detective--none of that dismisses the fact that both of these shows are also ensemble pieces with a strong supporting cast.

Again, the problem that people have with Goku is that he's fucking stagnate. He doesn't grow because his entire character arch effectively ended in Z when he beat Freeza and went from a low class Saiyan to the strongest in the galaxy. Aside from that, he hasn't change for nearly 30 years. And here's the thing: that's not necessarily a problem. One Punch Man is basically about a Goku character who has already achieved the goals of a shounen main character type off screen. What makes OPM work is that the story has a wide variety of supporting characters that Saitama can bounce off of, revealing different aspects of both his and their personalities.

Regardless of whether you believe that DB is an ensemble, it does not take away from argument I'm making: There is no strong supporting cast that, well, support the main character. This is where a brunt of the criticisms come from. Because of the power creep which essentially locks most of the cast to background characters who merely stare in awe at Goku and Vegeta's power, there's no one who these two can bounce off of. So its just the same dynamic again and again. Its why people are bored with the current arc, why I don't think the Super anime works at all. Saying "well Goku is the main character" is a poor argument for the franchise's narrative flaws.

It isn't power creep that's the issue. It's fiction, there's some way or some McGuffin that can easily give characters more power. It's not even power that's the issue, it's simply giving the characters more to do that can further their story and doesn't necessitate them being strong enough to bring down the big bad.

And who is saying "Goku is the main character" as an excuse for its flaws?

Any time valid criticism is given for how most of the rest of the major cast is often poorly utilized or written in general, many fans will screech out "Dragonball is Goku's story" or "Dragonball is not an ensemble" as a way to shut down any criticism as if its an excuse, like not being an ensemble story somehow makes it all okay.

[NickLord]

C17 being able to match SSJ3/SSB was badly handled, especially since it was mentioned that C17 doesn't train at all.

The problem with DBS is that even light training at a small amount of time can lead to matching SSJ3/SSB tier, which is something that never used to happen in DB/DBZ.

Krillin generic normal gym training leading him to have better feats than Gotenks that was really bad. Heck Master Roshi in DB is harder training compared to what everyone does in DBS minus Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and Gohan.
Freeza is the king at being lazy. Just 4 months beating Tagoma = above SSB.

It was actually mentioned in both the Super Anime and Manga that A17 actually did started training on a regular basis after the Cell Saga.

The real problem is that Revival of F pretty much permanently ruined the franchise's powerscaling. Freeza somehow never once considering to train before RoF and him somehow having God-level potential that's easily accessed by regular training is some of the absolute worst writing in the entire series, because not only did it completely invalidate God-Ki and Angel training, it also retroactively damages the overall narrative of the OG Manga and makes Freeza look really stupid smh. Why was Freeza so afraid of the Saiyans if he knew that he had this God level potential in him all along? Based on what he accomplished in RoF, with just one day of normal training Freeza would have became far more powerful than any SSJ in Z save for maybe Vegito. And any rationale or excuse he had for committing genocide against the U7 Saiyans is gone out the window due these retcons too besides "Beerus made me do it". Not even the worst of GT is as damaging to narrative of the franchise as RoF is.

Also, since RoF is when we've started randomly seeing characters without any God powers or Divine training that have SSG+ levels of power for basically no reason, as well as starting to see formerly weak character all-of-a-sudden reaching BoG SSG Goku levels of power or higher with just a short amount of normal training despite never showing anywhere near a growth rate this massive in the OG Manga or Z. The Humans are bad enough with this (especially Roshi, who's massive power increase in both versions of the ToP completely invalidates the reason why he choose to retire from combat in the 22nd TB arc) but the worst example of all is Gohan, who in the ToP arc with just 3 days of normal training with Piccolo went from being weaker than his Buu Saga self to rivaling Goku Black in his prime in the Anime and being the equal of SSJ1 Kefla in the Manga, ridiculous lol. All of this can traced back to RoF.

[Majin Buu]

So yeah..no. That's not how this works. I mean how do you explain Dragon Ball Z, a show that spends large amount of time on characters other than Goku? How does that not make the franchise an ensemble. Its misinterpreting what that word means, and I'm just baffled that some people don't understand that. Dragon Ball is a story that focuses on Goku while also being an ensemble. Like how One Piece is a show about Luffy's drive to be Pirate King or Yu Yu Hakusho is about Yusuke being a spirit detective--none of that dismisses the fact that both of these shows are also ensemble pieces with a strong supporting cast.

Dragon Ball is not an ensemble because Goku is clearly the main focus (until it becomes the "Goku and Vegeta" show as others have pointed out). If it were an ensemble, most of the cast would be getting roughly equal screen time and story focus and Dragon Ball has never really been written that way. Yeah, Goku is out of action for larges stretches of Z's arcs, but everything still revolves around him to one extent or another.

When I hear fans say "Dragon Ball is an ensemble", it feels like what they mean is "Dragon Ball should be an ensemble".

Regardless of whether you believe that DB is an ensemble, it does not take away from argument I'm making: There is no strong supporting cast that, well, support the main character. This is where a brunt of the criticisms come from. Because of the power creep which essentially locks most of the cast to background characters who merely stare in awe at Goku and Vegeta's power, there's no one who these two can bounce off of. So its just the same dynamic again and again. Its why people are bored with the current arc, why I don't think the Super anime works at all. Saying "well Goku is the main character" is a poor argument for the franchise's narrative flaws.

People pointing out that Dragon Ball isn't an ensemble/Goku is the main character (basic facts about the story) is not the same thing as denying that Dragon Ball doesn't utilize its supporting cast well. You and NickLord are erroneously conflating the two and creating a strawman in the process. That's my issue.

[Lord Beerus]

It isn't power creep that's the issue. It's fiction, there's some way or some McGuffin that can easily give characters more power. It's not even power that's the issue, it's simply giving the characters more to do that can further their story and doesn't necessitate them being strong enough to bring down the big bad.

It's funny you say that because the current arc of Dragon Ball Super (Manga) literally does this. A character uses the Dragon Balls to wish to be the strongest in the universe. And, who have guessed it, this plot development had quite a negative impact on the quality of the storytelling for that arc as it lead to the arc becoming just one long fight with no character development or plot progression.

[MasenkoHA]

Not really? This is fiction. The author can introduce whatever they want to power someone up, and make it logistically exclusive to them in any number of ways. Or, just have them still be far behind bigger hitters like Goku, and still play a role anyway. Which is what happened.

"If the author wants to utilize lampshading and overall bad/nonsensical writing, that's their prerogative" is a terrible argument.

Isn’t lampshading just dumb tv tropes speak for “meta commentary” Seems like that has fuck all to do with what Zephyr said.

[Cursed Lemon]

Isn’t lampshading just dumb tv tropes speak for “meta commentary” Seems like that has fuck all to do with what Zephyr said.

So if Goku is facing down a bad guy and says "hold up" then walks off screen for five seconds and returns with a brand new hair color for no reason and then beats the piss out of the villain, is that acceptable storytelling because iT's FiCtIoN and Akira Toriyama can do wHaTeVeR hE wAnTs?

Because that's about as ridiculous as 17 getting stronger by several orders of magnitude (can androids even GET stronger?) simply by shooing away poachers for some years.

[MasenkoHA]

Isn’t lampshading just dumb tv tropes speak for “meta commentary” Seems like that has fuck all to do with what Zephyr said.

So if Goku is facing down a bad guy and says "hold up" then walks off screen for five seconds and returns with a brand new hair color for no reason and then beats the piss out of the villain, is that acceptable storytelling because iT's FiCtIoN and Akira Toriyama can do wHaTeVeR hE wAnTs?

Because that's about as ridiculous as 17 getting stronger by several orders of magnitude (can androids even GET stronger?) simply by shooing away poachers for some years.

I mean they specified that #16-18 have infinite energy. So uh yeah 17 training in his downtime and getting a lot stronger than what we saw him 13 years ago (in-universe) isn’t anywhere near ridiculous as your example.


Making straw man arguments isn’t doing you any favors.

[super michael]

I can't remember the chapter that Goku battle C17 in DBS manga, so I can't find it. However I will quote what is mentioned in the chapters I see:

Chapter 36
Piccolo: What sort of training have you been up to, anyway?
C17: What sort...? Just protecting my island.

Chapter 42
Goku: Not just the universes! I mean take #17-- That guy doesn't do much of anything, and he's somehow just about as strong as us.

there is no evidence that C17 trains in the manga. C17 got as strong without doing anything, while Goku and Vegeta had to get that strong by training with the best.

Why isn't Future C17 SSB tier, seeing that he was hunting humans down.