What is the lamest thing to come out of modern DBZ?

[TheMikado]

To frame this more succinctly there is a faction of the fandom which truly believes:
Toriyama = Good content.
Non-Toriyama = bad content

I fail to see how this is a problem. All things being equal, deferring to the creator is the least worrisome standard anyone can have as far as fiction goes.

How is this not and problem??
Ascribing the quality of content exclusively by the creator and not its artistic value?

[Grimlock]

What is this referring to?

Just a little something I saw nearby. Very much nearby.

This.

I mean we only got trailer of Daima, we don't know if it's good or not. Basing on trailer and initial synopsis i can only say it already sounds more interesting to me than anything under "Dragon Ball Super" title except maybe Super Hero which could be even released as DBZ movie if it wasn't for few scenes of training at Beerus place. And that says a lot.

Dragon Ball Daima is neither a retelling nor a tournament, it doesn't even bring an old (movie) villain back (as far as we can tell), so those alone put the new series above Dragon Ball Super. It looks and sounds, by far, much more interesting indeed. All we can do now is pray to Dende it turns out to be a great material, because all the potential to be good is there. Even if we have to deal with the cast being kids that we could go without.

To frame this more succinctly there is a faction of the fandom which truly believes:
Toriyama = Good content.
Non-Toriyama = bad content

I fail to see how this is a problem.

It is a problem because...

Toriyama = Bad content.
Non-Toriyama = Good content.

... is also a reality everyone must accept.

[Luso Saiyan]

How is this not and problem??
Ascribing the quality of content exclusively by the creator and not its artistic value?

Your premise automatically implies that content by the creator has no inherent artistic value. And that's not true.

I really fail to see the problem. It's one thing to simply not like something that comes from Toriyama. But to find it troublesome that there are people that defer to the creator/original artist in regards to the fictional universe which he created is baffling to say the least. It's finding a problem with a perfectly natural and valid position.

[funrush]

The lamest thing to come out of modern Dragon Ball is the Trunks/Mai pairing. He is a child and she is in her 50s at least. It's pedophilia played for comic relief.

[Psajdak]

There should be a limit to how much people can be incels.

[Zephyr]

To frame this more succinctly there is a faction of the fandom which truly believes:
Toriyama = Good content.
Non-Toriyama = bad content

I didn't realize the contingent of people who think Dragon Ball Minus is good was large enough to constitute a "faction".

[capsulecorp]

I don't like this kind of thread, it feels calculated just to create arguments and hurt feelings. However, I'm procrastinating.

So, for me it's definitely the Goku Black/Zamasu stuff. It feels like a real low point for the entire series, like the worst kind of fan fiction or committee/marketing-driven decision making, where you start with a childish and ridiculous idea ("What if there was an evil Goku??") and work backwards to write a story around it. It's sadistic, perverse and mean spirited in a way that feels out of place in the Dragon World, again like as if an edgy teen decided to write fan fiction because the official stories didn't have enough "stakes".

It's not impossible to imagine a more successful version of this story - Dragon Ball has done brilliant work with questionable premises before, most recently with the Broly movie - but what we got felt tedious, shallow and overly tropey, particularly when viewed next to other modern doppelganger stories, most notably Twin Peaks.

The GodTube was a fun gag though, and its hard to stay mad at Zeno.

[Jord]

Zeno and the whole solution to the Zamasu arc being "Goku presses a magic button to make the villain disappear." I still can't believe they went that route. While the Zamasu arc was weak in itself, that finish takes the cake.
It's clear Toriyama wrote himself in a corner and didn't know how to write himself out of it.

The Super Android 17 saga is probably one of the least popular sagas but that one at least managed to nail the ending, with the teamwork between 18 and Goku.

[SupremeKai25]

Zeno and the whole solution to the Zamasu arc being "Goku presses a magic button to make the villain disappear." I still can't believe they went that route. While the Zamasu arc was weak in itself, that finish takes the cake.
It's clear Toriyama wrote himself in a corner and didn't know how to write himself out of it.

The Super Android 17 saga is probably one of the least popular sagas but that one at least managed to nail the ending, with the teamwork between 18 and Goku.

He didn't "write himself into a corner".

In the Anime, literally in the first episode it's mentioned how Zeno is fickle and volatile and can easily erase all of a existence on a whim.

The Zeno Button was then introduced midway through the arc, long before it was actually utilized.

"He didn't know how to write himself out of that corner", we're talking about a story arc that lasted 21 episodes in the Anime and 12 chapters in the Manga. It's not like it was some long, dragged-out storyline that took years to complete lol. If Toriyama didn't want to involve Zeno, then he would have simply written Immortality or Future Zamasu entirely out of the storyline. He knew from the beginning that he wanted such an OP and almighty villain that Zeno himself would have to get involved.

He simply didn't want to write a fairy-tale plotline where Trunks got an undeserved happy ending after his abuse of time caused reality itself to unravel (time travel being a sinful taboo forbidden even to the Gods, this plot point is reiterated several times during the arc by multiple Godly characters).

[Magnificent Ponta]

I'd like to proffer another nomination, most succinctly summarised as "Story Mode".

Story Mode has always been with us in Dragon Ball games, but I feel it's become much lamer and less satisfying in the modern period, where the audience typically demands more game for its money. So they toss in the obligatory Mode. Basically every Dragon Ball game of the modern period does one of the following (or else a combination of elements from more than one) when it offers the player some kind of Story Mode to play through:

• A dull, wooden retread of the vanilla Dragon Ball storyline - or worse, an "expanded" version of the same for content's sake, bloating passing exchanges into full-blown battles before reverting to the baseline story in cut-scenes (example: Kakarot, even if RPG-ified elements are added to the default approach);
• A "This Isn't The Story You Know!" retread, where some sort of Time shenanigans means that the retread you're expecting gets a predictable twist ("The Bad Guy wasn't supposed to be this strong/win!")and you have to fight to undo said twist before moving on to the next one; lather-rinse-repeat until you've "fixed" everything (example: Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission);
• An "Original Story", which tends to mash together a few hackneyed elements to make a plot that tends to be equal parts dull and trite (Amnesiacs! Insert Characters! Mysterious Strangers With An Agenda! Evil Clones! Random Cameos! Time Stuff! Etc!), resulting in a barely-there scenario stitched together with repetitive fights (example: FighterZ).

The progression is usually unbearably padded and repetitive, the characterisation (particularly as demonstrated in interactions with Your Insert Character) is so flat and toe-curlingly lame it moves beyond that and becomes positively hokey, and the whole experience is generally an unimaginative grind. It's routinely, inescapably lame. Even enjoyable game mechanics seem unable to cover for it, in my opinion.

It'd be nice if more games were a little more modest in scope and took a break from Story Mode for a while.

[super michael]

The lamest thing in modern Dragon Ball are these:

- Goku turning into a dumb characters that says and does dumb things all the times. He lost some skills and knowledge for no reason.
- Chi Chi turning into a spoiled brat that she has to get everything her way or she throws a tantrum. She controls others be it family or friends.
- Character getting huge power gains from weak training.
- Power scale is terrible, some characters feels weaker than episode 1 Goku, that is how bad it is an example. One episode a character might be SSB tier, then another episode he is SSJ1 and another Base tier.
- Certain characters appears or gets mentioned only for them not to get involved in the action or training.

[ABED]

I'd like to proffer another nomination, most succinctly summarised as "Story Mode".

Story Mode has always been with us in Dragon Ball games, but I feel it's become much lamer and less satisfying in the modern period, where the audience typically demands more game for its money. So they toss in the obligatory Mode. Basically every Dragon Ball game of the modern period does one of the following (or else a combination of elements from more than one) when it offers the player some kind of Story Mode to play through:

• A dull, wooden retread of the vanilla Dragon Ball storyline - or worse, an "expanded" version of the same for content's sake, bloating passing exchanges into full-blown battles before reverting to the baseline story in cut-scenes (example: Kakarot, even if RPG-ified elements are added to the default approach);
• A "This Isn't The Story You Know!" retread, where some sort of Time shenanigans means that the retread you're expecting gets a predictable twist ("The Bad Guy wasn't supposed to be this strong/win!")and you have to fight to undo said twist before moving on to the next one; lather-rinse-repeat until you've "fixed" everything (example: Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission);
• An "Original Story", which tends to mash together a few hackneyed elements to make a plot that tends to be equal parts dull and trite (Amnesiacs! Insert Characters! Mysterious Strangers With An Agenda! Evil Clones! Random Cameos! Time Stuff! Etc!), resulting in a barely-there scenario stitched together with repetitive fights (example: FighterZ).

The progression is usually unbearably padded and repetitive, the characterisation (particularly as demonstrated in interactions with Your Insert Character) is so flat and toe-curlingly lame it moves beyond that and becomes positively hokey, and the whole experience is generally an unimaginative grind. It's routinely, inescapably lame. Even enjoyable game mechanics seem unable to cover for it, in my opinion.

It'd be nice if more games were a little more modest in scope and took a break from Story Mode for a while.

What exactly are you looking for then?

[Magnificent Ponta]

I'd like to proffer another nomination, most succinctly summarised as "Story Mode".

Story Mode has always been with us in Dragon Ball games, but I feel it's become much lamer and less satisfying in the modern period, where the audience typically demands more game for its money. So they toss in the obligatory Mode. Basically every Dragon Ball game of the modern period does one of the following (or else a combination of elements from more than one) when it offers the player some kind of Story Mode to play through:

• A dull, wooden retread of the vanilla Dragon Ball storyline - or worse, an "expanded" version of the same for content's sake, bloating passing exchanges into full-blown battles before reverting to the baseline story in cut-scenes (example: Kakarot, even if RPG-ified elements are added to the default approach);
• A "This Isn't The Story You Know!" retread, where some sort of Time shenanigans means that the retread you're expecting gets a predictable twist ("The Bad Guy wasn't supposed to be this strong/win!")and you have to fight to undo said twist before moving on to the next one; lather-rinse-repeat until you've "fixed" everything (example: Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission);
• An "Original Story", which tends to mash together a few hackneyed elements to make a plot that tends to be equal parts dull and trite (Amnesiacs! Insert Characters! Mysterious Strangers With An Agenda! Evil Clones! Random Cameos! Time Stuff! Etc!), resulting in a barely-there scenario stitched together with repetitive fights (example: FighterZ).

The progression is usually unbearably padded and repetitive, the characterisation (particularly as demonstrated in interactions with Your Insert Character) is so flat and toe-curlingly lame it moves beyond that and becomes positively hokey, and the whole experience is generally an unimaginative grind. It's routinely, inescapably lame. Even enjoyable game mechanics seem unable to cover for it, in my opinion.

It'd be nice if more games were a little more modest in scope and took a break from Story Mode for a while.

What exactly are you looking for then?

Really this topic is about what is lame (i.e., identifying the negative), not about what I want (envisioning the positive); consequently I don't feel the need to be exact. But there are plenty of basic options.

A format change would be just fine; it doesn't have to be a 2D/3D fighter following The Epic Story Of Dragon Ball (Just Like Last Time) ad nauseam to be a decent and enjoyable Dragon Ball game. Platformers, adventure RPGs, Hell, even a concept as basic and not-particularly-original as a Dragon Ball-themed reskin/reworking of Mario Party would be a blast. I don't need to see another game where we get a full-blown 10-minute 3D sandbox battle on rails between, e.g., Piccolo and Raditz as a stand-in for their 5-page encounter in the original story.

Or if a fighting game, then a smaller-scale fighting game where its basic replayability appeal is foregrounded in having enjoyable mechanics, and which doesn't feel the need to stuff in a dull bloated repetitious mess simply to pad play time (I quite happily sank hundreds of hours into the DBZ SNES fighter games; their Story Modes are necessarily brief and snappy - or, in the case of Super Butouden 3, not even present). FighterZ, for example, would unquestionably be a more enjoyable game just as basically the same game without its Story Mode. It can stand just fine on its merits as a DBZ fighting game.

Or, if there has to be some kind of Story Mode, then simply something tighter, showing a little more care and craft and not just fishing from the same tired grab-bag of identikit story elements as most of the modern games do.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I think the lamest thing that came out is the dumb down version of Goku. Sure he wasn't the brightest but I felt like he grown a bit during the original run. They turned his childness into stupidity. I feel the Super Manga fixes some of these issues at least.

[Thanos]

- Power scale is terrible, some characters feels weaker than episode 1 Goku, that is how bad it is an example. One episode a character might be SSB tier, then another episode he is SSJ1 and another Base tier.

I do think modern Dragon Ball's power scaling is more egregious than anything prior, except for maybe GT which seemed to adapt the philosophy that time = automatic power boost for no particular reason and everyone in the universe is getting progressively stronger (rando alien mutant Rilldo > Buu just because it's ten years after that arc, duh).

Wasn't base kid Goku considered stronger than most of the Z characters or some such nonsense? Even that pales into comparison to Trunks' absolute bullshit Super Saiyan "Rage" form. The guy is about Buu arc in terms of power, witnesses Goku and Vegeta achieve god forms after their long time of intense training... yet a few hours later feels entitled to win so he spontaneously invents some kind of pseudo-god form. It was completely out of no where, and he has had plenty of anger and heartache up to this point, and conveniently achieves the form in this moment. It would've been like if Kuririn had gotten fed up, gotten a rage boost on Namek and killed Freeza or something.

It's just stupid and I still haven't forgiven them for pulling that nonsense. Dragon Ball has always been absurd but that took the cake for me.

[The Monkey King]

How is this not and problem??
Ascribing the quality of content exclusively by the creator and not its artistic value?

Your premise automatically implies that content by the creator has no inherent artistic value. And that's not true.

I really fail to see the problem. It's one thing to simply not like something that comes from Toriyama. But to find it troublesome that there are people that defer to the creator/original artist in regards to the fictional universe which he created is baffling to say the least. It's finding a problem with a perfectly natural and valid position.

Would you call the story of Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F "Good"?

[JulieYBM]

Toriyama relies on mostly un-depicted training for his new power-ups because he doesn't really want to do the work of building up and relying on characters' emotional arcs. Head Writer Tomioka Atsuhiro and Series Director Hatano Morio actually did that work, that's why we got Super Saiyan Ikari Trunks.

[GhostEmperorX]

Toriyama relies on mostly un-depicted training for his new power-ups because he doesn't really want to do the work of building up and relying on characters' emotional arcs.

It's just like how he off-panels certain relationships between characters.
Meanwhile, it's a completely different story in some other series (like Saint Seiya for example).

Just wondering, you seem to have found other IP's that handle this and many other elements better. Is it ok to ask what it is that makes you stick around with this particular IP?
(Personally, I only want to review it properly since I did it wrong the first time, after that I may probably be done.)

[JulieYBM]

Toriyama relies on mostly un-depicted training for his new power-ups because he doesn't really want to do the work of building up and relying on characters' emotional arcs.

It's just like how he off-panels certain relationships between characters.
Meanwhile, it's a completely different story in some other series (like Saint Seiya for example).

Just wondering, you seem to have found other IP's that handle this and many other elements better. Is it ok to ask what it is that makes you stick around with this particular IP?
(Personally, I only want to review it properly since I did it wrong the first time, after that I may probably be done.)

I'm sticking with DB for the contributions of artists other than Toriyama or Toyo-tarou. For example, my favorite writer of Japanese cartoons—Tomioka Atsuhiro—writes a large number of Dragon Ball Super episodes. I also like the creative decisions of directors like Nagamine and others staff members in pushing certain character arcs to the forefront. For example, Toriyama's script is hardly the shining element of Dragon Ball Super: Broli. It's the contributions of others that really elevate that material (and even then I think Nagamime should have pushed harder to influence the story and find the time to focus more on Broli and Cheelai). Shimada Bin and Mizuki Nana do a lot of heavy-lifting to sell the Broli-Cheelai relationship before the script is so timid.

This is why I am so against the general fandom's—and the industry's—obsession with giving comic authors so much control over the film and television adaptions of their works. They're downplaying not just creators who are experts in their fields, but also downplaying more talented artists. There's a reason why when Nagamime ignored Oda's request for more comedy in One Piece Film Z he in fact saved the tone of his film (this is the only example that immediately comes to mind).

I think that Dragon Ball suffers a lot from too many people who have too much power and too few desires to make something thematically and rich in character development all tripping over one another. We're damned lucky to have gotten stuff like Kale × Caulifla subtext as heavily as we did, but it's also undoubtedly one of the best parts of the entire franchise, dating all the way back to 1984.

Toriyama: doesn't want to make something good, and often just wants to perpetuate dumb sexist ideas.
Toyo-tarou: wants to suck up to Toriyama like Geoff Johns wants to suck up to Alan Moore.
Producers/editorial: gotta make this shit as lowest common denominator as possible, all while letting weird sexist bullshit to slip through.

Anyway, more Kale and Caulifla having metaphorical sex, please (and if you make a project for us adults, judt have them fuck for real plz k thx).

[GhostEmperorX]

I guess I can understand, although in general there's lots of productions that aren't really going to have anything new made out of them, and with DB, I'm not really following most any of the modern material. And as it appears, the IP is cursed either way by one thing or the other, like what you mentioned and more than that (such as Toei's generally mediocre treatment of it and Funiroll still having the license).
Doesn't help that the people behind it definitely don't care enough to ensure proper quality across the board (doesn't look like they ever did even back when they poured the most talent & effort into it) the way that you would see in other IP's, even those made by the same company & staff.

For one thing I used to have a lot of what-if ideas concerning the franchise, but after I got to learn more about the process behind it and how there's aspects of it that had the most hilarious or ridiculous reasons for why they were a thing in the first place, I realized that it's probably not worth thinking about too much.

And even recently, I learned that for certain plotlines with weight & all that (like the Future Trunks timeline), there were lots of established elements that had to be ignored in order for the writers to railroad them as they did.