Mr Baggins wrote: ↑Thu May 19, 2022 11:39 am
The theme is easy enough to identify. It's how this theme is conveyed that's bad.
What a substandard nothing this chapter is. Its whole thrust really is "bardock was the coolest guy" and "saiyans r 2 kewl" and Goku and Vegeta totally should feel proud of their Cerealian-exterminating race that Monaito, their victim, is giving hamfisted speeches about while handing out Saiyan armor that appears for all of two panels just in case you missed its tone deaf "subtext". Holy shit, this is so far beyond hackneyed. The original manga is a series about self-growth and being your own person; it took every opportunity it could to dismiss the idea of glorifying not only the Saiyans, but collectivism in general. Goku constantly rebuked his people and wanted nothing to do with them, and Vegeta's whole throughline was rising above them.
There is nothing uncommercial about any of this. It's typical fan oriented un-DB. Even if we interpret that scene as charitably as possible and pretend Saiyan Pride™ isn't part of the equation or Toyotaro is just shit at phrasing, we still run into problems:
If it's Goku accepting his "nature" as a person, that's ridiculous because Goku knows who he is. If "nature" means accepting his heritage, that's redundant because he's done that. What does this add? What is the point?
If it's Vegeta learning to accept who he is without berating himself over what his race did, fine, but so what? Then he's just back to pre-Moro Vegeta, and it only ever happened because he heard Bardock's COOLEST GUY speech. What is the fucking point?
The answer, of course, is nothing, but again, even that best case scenario isn't more than an overly charitable takeaway that ignores what they're saying. Because what they're actually saying is nonsense. If people thought the arc's pacing and characterization sucked, they can add "themes" to the list now too.
Apart from that, there's little else to discuss because we're still in our usual routine where nothing happens other than the same bland fight scenes that recycle the same gimmicks and beats: Gas sandbagging for no reason as usual, Gas summoning the same weapons again, Elec explaining why Gas is stronger than Granolah again (really???), Vegeta regurgitating the same lines about his Hakai ball, Vegeta explaining how UE works again, etcetera. These sequences are by now so inanely repetitive, rote, predictable and uninteresting that I can't even feel excited about Goku and Vegeta teaming up in their ultra forms because there's nothing substantive to chew on. While some of that probably has to do with the non-character they're still fighting, at this point it's mainly an issue of DB being reduced to what is, at least in my view, its lowest form of appeal. Once again, mutual exclusivity between action and storytelling isn't what Toriyama's Dragon Ball is, but it sure as hell doesn't seem like the current writer understands that anymore.
Put this dying, bloated arc out of its misery already.