AliTheZombie13 wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 7:02 pm
Scsigs wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 6:44 pm
GT has good aspects, but a lot of the storytelling isn't great & I've explained why already.
A lot of the storytelling in Dragon Ball isn't great either. Didn't stop me from enjoying it when Toriyama was writing it, doesn't stop me in GT.
Heavily disagree. Though it's not without its faults & there's a good number of them (especially later material from both the manga, the Z anime, Resurrection F, & Super). A lot of what Toriyama did was pretty good writing-wise & it's amazing it took as long as it did to start showing the cracks with the fact that he not only procrastinated actually writing & drawing the chapters every week, but also didn't plan too far ahead (& by this I mean passed the current arc he was writing) & tended to forget certain things.
AliTheZombie13 wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 7:02 pm
Scsigs wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 6:44 pm
TFS' reviews of the episodes point out several times Goku's out of character, or inconsistent with his previous portrayal in the manga & previous shows.
TFS isn't some kind of Dragon Ball authority and I could care less about their opinion. And given that I had several issues with Goku's characterization during the "Z era" of the original manga's run, I really don't mind GT toning him down. Goku's portrayal in GT is fine for the most part (The one part where it isn't being during Super #17).
I never said they were. This is the problem with assuming why I say the things I do. I offered it as an example of people noticing these things. I have said multiple times in the thread for DBZA that even though I love DBZA & I like the guys from TFS, they're not perfect or spotless in their approach to the franchise. I specifically pointed out that I hated what they did with the Gohan/Cell shit where they turned Gohan into a pacifist & that's inconsistent with his portrayal both in the original Z & DBZA before episode 60. I've hated that since 2018 when they first put out that part of that episode. I also very much disagree with certain takes they have on other things (Lani & Taka saying Nadolny's Gohan sounded like Bobby Hill, which he doesn't, for example). I don't hold them as the bastions of perfect DB opinions. I just tend to agree with a lot of the ones they have.
And before anyone jumps on me for saying Gohan's not a pacifist like someone did in that thread, look at his characterization from the manga, Z & Super. Gohan's nature isn't that of a fighter like his father, nor is it a pacifistic one. He's more of a bookworm than a warrior, but he WILL fight to protect his loved ones if he needs or or feels it's right. I mean, that's why Cell driving Gohan mad & bringing out his latent power was such a big deal after all. Anyone who unironically thinks Gohan is a pacifist is an idiot & needs to either reread the manga, or rewatch the show (preferably Kai if you watch the dubs, as they don't have extremely stupid & cringe dialogue like the Z dub).
Also, you completely misunderstand what I mean by "Goku being out of character." I mean specific moments where he's written very oddly in terms of his dialogue that doesn't make much sense with how you'd expect him to act. They crop up every so often. Super has a lot more of these moments because the writers had no clear idea of how to write his character properly, which led to flanderization & inconsistent characterization for him in that show. The joke Toriyama had them put in of Goku apparently not knowing what a kiss is also doesn't help, but I never say Toriyama's flawless in HIS writing either. He's just more consistent & has a better grip on the characters most of the time.
Granted, I think, in general, GT has a better grip on Goku's characterization than Super ever did when Toriyama wasn't involved in the scripting process like he was with the last 4 movies.
AliTheZombie13 wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 7:02 pm
Scsigs wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 6:44 pm
Pan consistently floats between being a decent character & a bitch, mainly to Giru, often for no reason. She doesn't provide much to the series, unfortunately.
Heavy disagree, I'll take her over Vegeta any day of the week.
I never said I'd rather Vegeta. In fact, I'm glad GT de-emphasized Vegeta for a lot of it (outside of Baby hijacking his body & him joining Goku fighting Omega Shenron, that is. What I said was that Pan has an inconsistent characterization & it makes me not like her & even feel sorry for her because the writers clearly had no proper idea of what they wanted to do with her.
AliTheZombie13 wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 7:02 pm
Scsigs wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 6:44 pm
Super Saiyan 4 being "an overrated aspect" as you say should really tell you something about the show. The fact that the 1 aspect most people like & remember about the series being a new transformation rather than the stories being told, the characters, & other aspects is very telling.
You're right, the original Dragon Ball for example, was a terrible show, even Japan likes to pretend it doesn't exist in favor of Z. Westerners constantly call it "Mid" and "a waste of time." And every single attempt to import it before Z resulted in an utter complete failure of poor ratings where it winded up being cancelled after only a few episodes, that's very telling. Shame on Toriyama for ever writing such atrocity.
...and in case somebody didn't notice, that was sarcasm.
Ok, 1. This is a whataboutism. I never brought up OG DB.
2. I have never heard people call it mid or a waste of time & we don't actually know what the JP fanbase on the whole thinks of the older parts of the series. Toei & Shueisha usually focus on Z & beyond rather than OG because it's more readily marketable worldwide than most of the earlier stuff. Most people tend to either skip it entirely because Z is so much more heavily emphasized in the marketing & promo stuff. Thus, they either see it as less important, or just don't know it exists. This is a very cynical take & I don't like it.
3. If we wanna argue why Z was more readily successful when exported to the States, I'll tell ya. It's more accessible. The generally more serious tone & focus on action make it much easier to get into, especially when you're a kid. This is part of why Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was such an instant success. The earlier stuff had more emphasis on comedy. Mainly a mix of off-color humor (the much maligned shit with Roshi being an old pervert for example), slapstick, & what not. It's far more of a farcical comedy than the later material is, along the lines of Monty Python where not a lot is taken
too seriously in the narrative. It's only with the introduction of King Piccolo & Krillin dying for the first time that the series drifted in a more serious direction. A direction Toriyama would later backtrack on with Buu, but I'm not gonna get into with THAT tonal mess of an arc right now. Also, Z was broadcast on Toonami after initially failing in broadcast syndication. OG DB tried twice in broadcast syndication as well, but also failed to find an audience.
MasenkoHA wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 8:20 pm
Scsigs wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 6:44 pm
[TFS' reviews of the episodes point out several times Goku's out of character, or inconsistent with his previous portrayal in the manga & previous shows.
I hope one day online fans discourse evolves past needing to cite some YouTube reviewer(s) has to say. I do not and will never care what TFS/Linkara/Mr.Enter/ Random dude with cartoon avatar has to say. Their opinions are no more credible than anybody else's.
I said this to the person above, but you misunderstood why I brought them up. See what I said up there.
Super Saiyan 4 being "an overrated aspect" as you say should really tell you something about the show. The fact that the 1 aspect most people like & remember about the series being a new transformation rather than the stories being told, the characters, & other aspects is very telling.
Is that any different than Dragon Ball Z...where most people remember the transformations?
People remember Z for more than the transformations, what? The characters & the storylines are just as well-remembered by the majority of people as the transformations.
The Android arc is a terrible example of this because it was subject to massive rewrites as it went along from what Toriyama was planning to do because his editor kept rejecting the characters he was designing to be the villains & that impacted the arc a lot because of that.
What rewrites? Toriyama was making it up as he went along and working out his story per feedback from his former editor and then current editor. All of those examples from Ali are well after it was decided by Toriyama that Cell would be the big bad.[/quote]
Sigh... You misunderstand what I meant by "rewrites."
Yes, Toriyama made it all up as he went along. EVERY writer who isn't a plagiarist does. However, you're taking that to mean that he just thought every little thing he wrote into his stories up on the spot as he was writing it & that, I have a hard time believing. I don't know if it's ever been talking about by Toriyama himself or his editors how far he thinks in advance, but as an amateur & aspiring writer myself, you tend to have ideas come to your head as you write things for your stories. You figure out what works best as you go along, but that's what happens. I don't think Toriyama thought much farther ahead than the current arc he was writing for the majority of the time. My assumption is that he had rough ideas of what he wanted to do in his head, maybe made notes of them, & fit them in as he went. Saying he made shit up as he went along, while true, completely ignores that he was an author & he was a smart man when it came to most of the storytelling. He was very good on the fly & doing course corrections & it's why the Android arc feels mostly fluid.
However, that completely ignores that as he was told by his editor at the time to change the antagonists twice because he didn't like them, then redesigned Cell twice until his editor said he liked the design, then worked them all into the narrative. We don't know what Toriyama's original plan was for Gero & 19, but I can bet he was forming ideas at the time for how the story was to unfold & what he wanted to do with them. Same with 17 & 18. Same with the first 2 forms of Cell. He may not have firmly said, "I'm going to do THIS with them," but he didn't create them for nothing. Hence why Toriyama had to constantly explain why the new things came into existence in the story to try & justify them.
"Why didn't Trunks specifically warn the Dragon Team about 17 & 18?" Trunks apparently didn't know Gero & 19 were the first 2 androids that showed up & later 17 & 18 were let out of their pods.
"Why did Cell come to the past?" Well, Trunks originally went back to his time with the remote Bulma invented to shut 17 & 18 down with & took them out after doing so. Then Cell found out about his time machine & used it to go back in time.
Stuff like this. I'm not saying it works, but you can definitely tell it's from a lack of properly planning these things out & rewrites from what Toriyama was more than likely brainstorming in his head originally.
Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2024 8:42 pm
I like Team Four Star but some fans tend to pedestalize them and their work, and worse even consider it a substitute for the show itself rather than a fun little parody on the side.
MasakoX has a great voice for Goku, but it's very much purely a comedic take. It doesn't compare to Sean Schemmel or Peter Kelamis at their best where they're giving their all with a serious performance as both have also shown they can do goofy Goku as well but they don't depend on it.
The fans that genuinely do that are extremely stupid. As I pointed out above, they're not the be all, end all of DB opinions. DBZA should
never be considered a substitute for the original show or manga & TFS has preached this multiple times over the years.
I very much have to disagree on MasakoX's Goku voice. I think it's very good &
would fit into a more serious dub if his performance was tweaked a bit. MistareFusion made that argument a while ago during his DB Dissection series because thinking DB is entirely serious is really dumb. Early DB in particular, as I've already pointed out above, is littered with comedy. Pretty Monty Python-level stuff where there's not a lot of stuff taken too seriously in the narratives of the arcs for a while until the King Piccolo arc. Also, look at the Buu arc. TONS of weird jokes & humor. It's what leads to the tonal whiplash of the arc bouncing from seriousness to comedy very poorly. Hell, Super & the last 4 DB movies have made it a point to influence more comedy into the stories, but at a more consistent pace & tone with the serious elements than the Buu arc did, which I very much appreciated.
ABED wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2024 9:40 am
In the case of the SSJ4 transformation, it's one of the more interesting transformations. Instead of Goku transforming due to rage, it's the serenity of remembering his family that triggers the transformation.
As for the person who said the Cell saga was rewritten because of Toriyama's editor, that's not what a rewrite is. Also, every writer needs a good editor. And lastly, Toriyama did a great job of making the shifts in the narrative feel organic. If you knew nothing of the behind the scenes stories, you'd think it was all intentional, which is the ideal.
As I said to the MasenkoHA what I meant by "rewrites." Call it wehatever you think is more appropriate, but you can tell 17, 18 & Cell were NOT how Toriyama was originally envisioning that arc to go.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2024 6:02 pm
AliTheZombie13 wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2024 5:54 pm
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2024 5:48 pm
Like I said, most of Z's problems tend to be fine details that can be bailed out when the surrounding story is compelling. You're a glad participant in the ride and so you can wave away stuff like "Why wasn't the zenkai so effective before?"
Vegeta suddenly going, "Oh, I know Ki Sensing now, an ability that required the entire cast years of spiritual training with God himself, BECAUSE SAIYAN!
" isn't a fine detail, it's Toriyama pulling things out of his ass. I'm sure you can try to explain it away, or cut to a quote from one of Toriyama's interviews, but I'm 99% sure I wouldn't buy that.
My guy, what you just said has been baked into the series from DAY ONE. It's literally Toriyama's favorite running gag. Half the foundation of the series is
"Did this dude just did this?" Every characterisitc of the Saiyan race is just extrapolated from Goku's existing character traits and behaviors. Like, the premise of the Saiyans is they're a whole race of Evil Gokus.
Like I'm sorry dawg but if you've gotten to the Namek saga and still can't jive with the idea of characters just strolling in and suddenly doing shit that previously took years of grueling experience then why are you even still on the ride?
While I agree with your point about shit like that being consistent in DB & being there from the beginning, I have to bring up the differences in presentation.The panels you showed are of a comedic tone & context, meant to subvert expectations for comedy & show how much more capable Goku is than Roshi or the audience thought up until that point. Vegeta randomly learning to sense Ki is never properly explained as to how he did it. He just randomly knows how to do it. There's not even a meta joke for it or a handwave explanation. It's why when TFS played with that reveal, they had Cui ask how Vegeta knew how to do that & Vegeta just went, "I don't know." Because also, if he could do that, why bring a scouter with him in the first place? He found out that Freeza went o Namek from someone else & then hopped in a pod to catch up.
Don't get me wrong, I believe Vegeta would be able to learn how to do it. I just don't get
how he did in that instance.
jjgp1112 wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2024 5:48 pm
These are all fine details that have nothing to do with whether I actually enjoy what I'm seeing and moreover, I can see a plausible reason for damn near every single thing you listed lmao. I mean Goku not transforming when Krillin first died? Has it not been established that Super Saiyan requires a strength threshold first and foremost
Actually, no. At least, not triggering the initial form of the transformation for the first time.
Goku went SS for the first time after learning about it & Krillin dying pissed him off so badly, it caused him to transform.
Vegeta, it's not shown outside of filler in the Z anime, but you have to figure it was through him being mad & frustrated at his lack of being able to attain it (part of why TFS parodied that scene & made him a blubbering crybaby about it, imo).
Gohan attained it after training with Goku in the Time Chamber. While we didn't see the full initial transformation, Goku telling him to envision everyone he loves dying to Freeza more than likely is what did it.
Future Gohan more than likely had a similar thing after training & being pissed at the Androids killing his loved ones.
Future Trunks in the anime adaptation of the chapter devoted to his backstory did it after he got pissed at 17 & 18 for killing Gohan. In the manga, he could apparently do it for a while & just needed training to handle the form.
Goten...just randomly went it while sparring with Chichi one day.
Present Trunks...no idea. Just like Goten, could just randomly do it. Even surprised Vegeta with it.
Cabba, Vegeta pissed him off enough.
Caulifla & Kale...no idea. Some weird shit about a tingle in their spines or something.
