Dragon Ball Super: Manga Chapter 91 - Official Discussion Thread

Discussion specifically regarding the "Dragon Ball Super" TV series premiering July 2015 in Japan, including individual threads for each episode.

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LoganForkHands73
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Re: Dragon Ball Super: Manga Chapter 91 - Official Discussion Thread

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:48 pm

Zephyr wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 5:41 pm
JulieYBM wrote: Fri Apr 07, 2023 7:28 pmGohan Beast is so ugly because it's likely meant to make fun of Cell arc fans of Gohan. That, of course, makes it a good transformation.
Exactly. It took a cool hairstyle and exaggerated it to the point that it looks silly, thus occupying the same aesthetic niche as Super Saiyan 3. They're both microcosms of what makes me love Dragon Ball so much: a funny story that started trying to be cool and badass, succeeded at that, and then finally used the cool and badass shit to be funny again, while still somehow managing to look cool doing it. Each element feeding into and informing the other.

I'm also pro-Toriyama not just taking the piss out of his own relatively-serious tropes and material, but of fans of said material. In this case, as a fan of Gohan's Cell Games transformation, I'm on the receiving end and still loving it. :lol:

I mean, fair enough. Speaking as a Dragon Ball fan, though, I was plenty satisfied. I can't speak for the past version of myself who got hooked on Dragon Ball in the first place, or the past version of myself who finished watching/reading it, but I can speak for my current self who continues to come back to it. There are two things that keep me coming back:
1. the funnies, from isolated gags, to elaborate name-pun systems, to parodying other works as well as itself
2. the story of Goku's growth as a martial artist, the "poison" that this growth has unwittingly cultivated, the rivalries that this "poison" has birthed, and the character development that these rivalries provide for said rivals

I couldn't care less about the story of Gohan's growth as a martial artist, so Beast did nothing for me there (and, obviously, had nothing to do with Goku's story). But its design was definitely self-parody, which checks one of my two boxes. Is that box 'substantive'? Is comedy substantive? Parody? Self-parody? I don't know. But being the butt of a joke in this way was satisfying.
While I think Super Hero generally pokes fun at fanservice tropes, it still plays the tropes earnestly enough for fans of the thing that's being satirised to be hyped by it. Like Gohan's transformation into Beast is played 100% straight, it's only the design that seems comedically over-the-top from certain angles (it's interesting that Toriyama originally wanted to go for a scarier vibe but dialled it back to look more traditional). Despite what's being said earlier in the thread, Beast Gohan and Orange Piccolo absolutely are hugely popular already - I don't even follow that much Dragon Ball stuff on social media yet I constantly get bombarded with fans squeeing and making artwork of these forms.

When I first heard about Beast Gohan and Orange Piccolo, I assumed they would be a total pisstake and, yeah, they are to an extent. However, I don't think the fans are necessarily meant to be the butt of the joke, it's more likely just another example of Dragon Ball cannibalising itself, similar to what Toriyama started to do around the Buu arc. In this case, the only real subject of parody is "hey, let's name this transformation after a colour, that's original", but the transformations still work in overpowering the villains, so there's not much more to it. I don't often throw around the word "deconstruction" as a badge of honour because it's so overused, but the Buu arc is a great self-parody and deconstruction because it presents a scenario where punching the bad guys isn't the right thing to do, and the Z-Warriors are kinda fucked at that point without help from somebody like Mr. Satan.

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Re: Dragon Ball Super: Manga Chapter 91 - Official Discussion Thread

Post by GreatSaiyaman123 » Tue Apr 11, 2023 3:30 pm

I find all of the Toriyama-penned movies to be fairly tongue-in-cheek (BoGs is the first DBZ story in years but it avoids Z's brawling and retreats to the OG style, RoF riffs on the old non canon Z movies and Broly is Broly) and as satirical and over-the-top as Toriyama may be (See Neko Majin Z), I don't think he's the type to make fun of his audience. He's just not that type of guy. Not that he takes that ridiculous hair seriously, but did he ever take anything seriously after Cell?

There's a lot of parodying, but I don't think it's aimed to poke fun at anyone besides itself and Gohan Beast doesn't fall in this category. It's as much of a parody as Super Saiyan 3.
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Re: Dragon Ball Super: Manga Chapter 91 - Official Discussion Thread

Post by Zephyr » Wed Apr 12, 2023 11:14 am

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:48 pmWhile I think Super Hero generally pokes fun at fanservice tropes, it still plays the tropes earnestly enough for fans of the thing that's being satirised to be hyped by it. Like Gohan's transformation into Beast is played 100% straight, it's only the design that seems comedically over-the-top from certain angles (it's interesting that Toriyama originally wanted to go for a scarier vibe but dialled it back to look more traditional).
Yeah, there's definitely a juxtaposition going on there, deliberately or not. Speaking for the lizard part of my brain, I do think the design is cool. I've never been a fan of Gohan's smaller hair as an adult, so I'm happy to see it taller again, and in particular taking the same general shape of my favorite of his hairstyles.

But, at the same time, it is also comically large. It's cool, but it's silly. It's so cool that it's silly, and that's funny to me. And as silly as the design is, neither the script nor the characters treat it as such, as you said playing it completely straight. That's even funnier to me. Like I said, each element feeds into the other, and informs the other.

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