What not start fresh with Dragon Ball?

[Kunzait_83]

Question, would you throw in Slam Dunk or the other two Takehiko Inoue works made after in with the bolded? He achieved a slam dunk pun totally not intended but also intended with the former becoming one of Shueisha's best-selling manga alongside Dragon Ball in the 90's, but from what little I've seen he was genuinely driven by pursuit of an artistic goal and didn't even sign off on cash grabs made later.

I'd put Slam Dunk and Buzzer Beater specifically among the bolded examples, absolutely: Slam Dunk in particular was an utterly huge, massive mainstream hit, every bit as iconic to 90s Shonen Jump as Dragon Ball or Yu Yu Hakusho or anything else of their ilk, and just as much of a cash cow as well.

That being said, the fact that Inoue was genuinely, sincerely driven by art rather than profit (as much of his later work shows) is exemplary of what my whole entire point was in my earlier big post here: that as corporate and commercialized as Manga often is (particularly Shonen Manga), it is still on a whole different layer removed from the level of corporate commercialization of a franchise that begins life as a literal, actual toy commercial intended to sell merch from the getgo.

Most Manga, even Shonen Manga, most often begins from a MUCH more artistically-driven place before it - depending on its level of success - eventually moves towards a more commercialized level. Something like Pokemon or Digimon and the like - which are 100% created in a corporate boardroom, rather than in an artist's studio - are simply NOT made within anything APPROACHING that context: the cart comes before the horse with those, the Merch selling motive is THE ENTIRE reason that they exist at all.

To not understand that incredibly crucial distinction is, I'm sorry, just living in a level of delusion about these things that isn't too far removed from someone thinking of a Shonen Manga Cash Cow like Dragon Ball (or One Piece, or Naruto, etc.) as being some kind of deeply profound arthouse project. There are levels, layers, and degrees to these things that are sometimes VERY transparently obvious and don't really require much effort to notice.

You mentioned Inoue's two other works after Slam Dunk, so I wanted to correct you: while Buzzer Beater was also a Shonen manga, both Vagabond and Real are very much decidedly and obviously/overtly Seinen.

Real in particular stands out as one of the single all-time greatest sports manga ever created bar none, and its not even close (and that isn't just my opinion either, its very much a widespread critical consensus, rightly so), and absolutely has genuine straight-up literary merit behind it. Examples of Shonen manga with actual literary merit certainly exist...

(as I also mentioned earlier with examples like Barefoot Gen, Apollo's Song, etc. and its beyond telling that the most ardent Shonen fanatics of the last 20 years just about NEVER, EVER come within lightyears of ever so much as mentioning or even bothering to glance at any of those kinds of Shonen titles as they wax poetic about how the latest Battle Shonen Dragon Ball-wannabe flavor of the moment is the single most Earth shatteringly brilliant thing to ever come out of manga or anime in history)

...but those are clearly and obviously dwarfed in number significantly by Seinen examples. For blatantly obvious reasons.

For anyone who is into sports manga, particularly Slam Dunk, or even just good manga/good comic book storytelling in general (being into sports is hardly a requirement here: god knows I'm not, and never have been much of a sports guy), Real is an absolutely essential, mandatory read. Breathtakingly beautiful and moving.

Even comparing Real to Inoue's prior sports manga Slam Dunk - Slam Dunk being of course an all time classic Shonen Manga that's among the best you'll find among Shonen - shows the absolutely MONUMENTAL, stark divide in emotional and intellectual depth that is even possible to achieve between something that is aimed at children (which Slam Dunk is) and something that is aimed at fully grown adults (which Real is).

There just isn't a comparison to be made here whatsoever, and that's with ALL due respect possible to Slam Dunk, which I and much of the rest of the manga reading/anime watching world absolutely adores wholeheartedly. But something like Real just exists on another level entirely which almost NO children's work, no matter how respectfully and thoughtfully crafted, could ever possibly hope to reach.



Even when you treat children with the utmost intellectual respect when writing for them (and really, ideally EVERYONE should be doing that all of the time in the first place, its beyond sad and awful that this is as rare as it is amongst children's media), the absolute most deepest, profoundly art-driven children's material is just almost NEVER going to match up to what an adult piece is capable of doing. By its very nature.

This fundamental point is what gets so often completely lost when people in communities like this one get their collective heads so lost up their own asses doing the whole tired-as-fuck "C.S. Lewis/Putting Away Childish Things, Including the Desire to be Grown Up" routine (which always misses the entire point of what Lewis actually even meant with that quote in the first place).

As far as a lot of the commercialized IP's, would it be correct to say that not having their origin with one creative mind or a small group (like CLAMP), but with a bunch of executives in a corporation where almost no one could even name a single individual off the top of their heads as being the main creator, is a strong indication of the difference?
(Wait, my bad, you mentioned this already.)

Yes, I did go into all of this in depth already, and the short-short tldr answer to that question is "yes".

[Italicized portion]A small aside though, I only know this series as being a thing pre-Y2K and not after, but isn't the name actually "Medarot" instead?

Evidently yes its original Japanese title is indeed Medarot (I have to go check to make sure that was the case), and that is frankly beyond hilariously apt. Sometimes these things just save you the trouble and straight-up tell you blatantly what they're all about right upfront on the very-most outset.

Seriously guys, go out and check out Inoue's Real ASAP. Read and watch stuff for adults for fuck's sake, please.

[90sDBZ]

To give Digimon credit where its due, Tamers aka Season 3 actually had a ton of character development and surprisingly dark underlying themes. Impmon's arc in particular was really well done, and had a ton of nuance.

And Adventure 1 and 2 were just straight up fun to watch.

[Kunzait_83]

To give Digimon credit where its due, Tamers aka Season 3 actually had a ton of character development and surprisingly dark underlying themes. Impmon's arc in particular was really well done, and had a ton of nuance.

And Adventure 1 and 2 were just straight up fun to watch.

Time and effort well spent Kunzait, as always.

Incidentally, whenever people keep repeating things like "But Season 3 of Digimon was surprisingly dark!" over and over and over in these kinds of discussion (which has happened many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times on here since my earliest days here, to the point where its become basically one of this communities' most well-worn cliches), this is all that I hear.

Also not for nothing, but the similarly cliched go-to counterpoint to this is that Serial Experiments Lain already exists guys. Same creator, was made years prior (giving Tamers even less reasons to exist), is WAY shorter and more concise, is made for a MUCH older audience, is 1000% less cringe and more impactful/substantive, and is just a vastly better, infinitely superior version of much of the same exact concepts and themes that people get so hung up on being present - in a greatly watered-down fashion - in Tamers. Go watch that instead.

There's literally zero justifiable reason to go with Tamers when Lain is right there and packs in a hundred times the substance and impact within an eighth of the time and with a zillion times less cringe toy commercial stupidity mixed in with the otherwise interesting cyberpunk themes.

Seriously, Tamers' "dark themes" is literally nothing more than just Chiaki Konaka recycling Lain's script into a watered/dumbed down version of itself for a stupid kids' toy commercial show that was in all likelihood little more than a quick paycheck gig for him. You're all adults here: go watch the real thing instead.

Me: "Guys after spending something like 20 years in this community talking and getting to know a lot of you pretty well, I'm not so sure many of you all realize that there's a whole lot of deeper, more enriching stuff out there than just Shonen/kids stuff."

Kanz: "But Season 3 of Digimon was surprisingly dark!"

Me: "Ok, but like... there's even DARKER stuff out there than just Digimon. Certainly a whole lot deeper too. Anyone here ever read Teito Monogatari?"

Kanz: "Never heard of it... but I did read the first few volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh... those were really surprisingly scary!"

Me: "Yu-Gi-Oh is made for 6 year olds guys. And you're all like, anywhere from 18 to 36. If you want something horror, what about stuff made by Kazuo Umezu? (RIP) Or Suehiro Maruo?"

Kanz: "Who? Dunno about all that, but that one episode of One Piece where the invisible guy attacked Nami in the bathhouse was really terrifying! That was practically a rape scene almost!"

Me: "...ever seen Hollow Man then? There's a lot of great films by Paul Verhoeven that are all still really, really super relevant to the current zeitgeist..."

Kanz: "Or what about Mimikyu's design in Pokemon? That was really kinda disturbing!"

Me: "...there's a LOT of great horror out there. Even super recently! Anyone seen Barbarian yet? Or X? Crimes of the Future? Late Night With the Devil? Hereditary? Midsommar? Us? Mandy? The Lighthouse? The Substance?"

Kanz: "Oh! What about Ed, Edd, n Eddy Halloween special? That got kinda spooky."

Me: "Guys..."

Kanz: "You guys remember in Diamond and Pearl where they took someone to the Demon World? Man that was cool.."

Me: "Guys..."

Kanz: "I always thought Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive was super adult and mature. Majora's Mask always scared me a lot too..."

Me: "Guys, guys, guys... you're aware that there's stuff other than children's toy commercial shows that can go a whole HELLUVA lot more farther than any of this, right? ...right?"

Kanz: "....but Digimon Season 3 was surprisingly dark! And cerebral!"

Me:

[JulieYBM]

dragon ball sucks we should all watch kibou no chikara: otona precure '23 instead

damn 17,000th post from the most perfect girl on the planet that's so cool

[MasenkoHA]

I feel like maybe the the point got lost somewhere along the way.

While Dragon Ball exist to make money it doesn't exist specifically to promote a product like the various Yu-gi-oh series exist to sell the trading card game or Pokemon does to promote the video games (often asking as a sneak peak to feature video games by showcasing new Pokemon ahead of time especially in the Kanto season) or Digimon exist to promote Tamagotchi for boys (and the Tamers season even blatanly incorporated the trading card game into the narrative to sell that). These series have a good reason to just completely ditch a cast and start fresh when the story is over because ultimately the product they're advertising has first priority. Taichi and friends story is complete but Bandai still wants to release a new wave of v-pets, time to start fresh.

Dragon Ball can ditch or reduce Goku and Vegeta's roles and pass the baton to the Saiyan/Earthling hybrid generations but there's no good reason to do a complete retool.


And yes advertainment series can hire people who make lemonades out of lemons. I don't doubt so and so animation director or head writer was really passionate about trying to elevate their assignment beyond "sell these toys" but the series will always only exist "to sell these toys"

[Kunzait_83]

I feel like maybe the the point got lost somewhere along the way.

While Dragon Ball exist to make money it doesn't exist specifically to promote a product like the various Yu-gi-oh series exist to sell the trading card game or Pokemon does to promote the video games (often asking as a sneak peak to feature video games by showcasing new Pokemon ahead of time especially in the Kanto season) or Digimon exist to promote Tamagotchi for boys (and the Tamers season even blatanly incorporated the trading card game into the narrative to sell that).

These series have a good reason to just completely ditch a cast and start fresh when the story is over because ultimately the product they're advertising has first priority. Taichi and friends story is complete but Bandai still wants to release a new wave of v-pets, time to start fresh.

Dragon Ball can ditch or reduce Goku and Vegeta's roles and pass the baton to the Saiyan/Earthling hybrid generations but there's no good reason to do a complete retool.

And yes advertainment series can hire people who make lemonades out of lemons. I don't doubt so and so animation director or head writer was really passionate about trying to elevate their assignment beyond "sell these toys" but the series will always only exist "to sell these toys"

Thank you. 100% all of this. No notes. Co-signed.

("Advertainment" is a PERFECT term to use for these kinds of shows btw, thank you, will be shamelessly stealing that one for all future use going forward.)

dragon ball sucks we should all watch kibou no chikara: otona precure '23 instead

Me: "Stop focusing solely on Shonen/Shojo/children's media: they make stuff for adults too, and you're all adults. Explore more adult anime and manga, and explore more adult media in general too."

Julie: "Lets all watch a Shojo Magical Girl show!"



Like Masenko said: I think the point got lost somewhere along the way.

[JulieYBM]

I feel like maybe the the point got lost somewhere along the way.

While Dragon Ball exist to make money it doesn't exist specifically to promote a product like the various Yu-gi-oh series exist to sell the trading card game or Pokemon does to promote the video games (often asking as a sneak peak to feature video games by showcasing new Pokemon ahead of time especially in the Kanto season) or Digimon exist to promote Tamagotchi for boys (and the Tamers season even blatanly incorporated the trading card game into the narrative to sell that). These series have a good reason to just completely ditch a cast and start fresh when the story is over because ultimately the product they're advertising has first priority. Taichi and friends story is complete but Bandai still wants to release a new wave of v-pets, time to start fresh.

Dragon Ball can ditch or reduce Goku and Vegeta's roles and pass the baton to the Saiyan/Earthling hybrid generations but there's no good reason to do a complete retool.


And yes advertainment series can hire people who make lemonades out of lemons. I don't doubt so and so animation director or head writer was really passionate about trying to elevate their assignment beyond "sell these toys" but the series will always only exist "to sell these toys"

Dragon Ball existed to sell magazines, so I really don't see the glamor in elevating one thing over another when at the end of the day they're both just pawns of an executive curating and shaping a potential money-maker. Especially when we're now dismissing the artistic validity of decades worth of work because video games and toys or what the fuck ever isn't the same as a magazine. Dragon Ball has been a media mix property for Shueisha since the 1980s.

Like, I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head and telling them to like something, but I think it's just the silliest thing in the world to put art in this hierarchy of validity because a guy got told to make a comic for a magazine and another got told to make an animated series, and by all accounts from the former's words, the former hated their job.

Anyway, I don't want to write an eight paragraph essay about this shit, because I don't even think that Dragon Ball as it currently exists even lends itself to pulling, say, a Digimon and I've already been on record within this thread saying that we should think in terms of smaller and more intimate stories anyway. The only point I was trying to make is that those sort of franchising works still lend themselves to being platforms for creating significant works of art for the industry that they're baked in—especially when you take a deeper look at those works and see the passion for them on display by the people creating them.

dragon ball sucks we should all watch kibou no chikara: otona precure '23 instead

Me: "Stop focusing solely on Shonen/Shojo/children's media: they make stuff for adults too, and you're all adults. Explore more adult anime and manga, and explore more adult media in general too."

Julie: "Lets all watch a Shojo Magical Girl show!"



Like Masenko said: I think the point got lost somewhere along the way.

i was going to suggest evangelion, but if you haven't already watched the best television series of all time that sounds like a skill issue

[GhostEmperorX]

Said point being that it's ultimately a question of what the raison d'être is for these different kinds of media.

Which, for "advertainment" series (as put a few posts above) is profit/merchandise first and anything else being an "along the way/on the side"-kind of thing (which depending on the series may not even remain that way for long).
Not so for those that aren't, like DB and others of its kind (while, of course, actually selling copies is a prerequisite for Shueisha or Kodansha to keep the manga in print).
Seinen titles being free of even that kind of condition.

Thus it is that there are different tiers to the concept, and some have a more compelling one than others. It's just something to be acknowledged as a basic foundation in discussions like these, regardless of preference.

You mentioned Inoue's two other works after Slam Dunk, so I wanted to correct you: while Buzzer Beater was also a Shonen manga, both Vagabond and Real are very much decidedly and obviously/overtly Seinen.

True, I got that mixed up for a while there.

[Kunzait_83]

Dragon Ball existed to sell magazines, so I really don't see the glamor in elevating one thing over another when at the end of the day they're both just pawns of an executive curating and shaping a potential money-maker. Especially when we're now dismissing the artistic validity of decades worth of work because video games and toys or what the fuck ever isn't the same as a magazine. Dragon Ball has been a media mix property for Shueisha since the 1980s.

Like, I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head and telling them to like something, but I think it's just the silliest thing in the world to put art in this hierarchy of validity because a guy got told to make a comic for a magazine and another got told to make an animated series, and by all accounts from the former's words, the former hated their job.

Not that you need to be reminded of this obviously, but we're in a capitalistic world: just about damn near everything here - not just art - exists to make money and create profit. Its inescapable (for the time being anyway).

That being said, I DON'T think living in a capitalistic "nearly everything exists solely to create revenue" universe means that ALL art is to be similarly flattened down as existing under the same levels and degrees of the most crass forms of corporate commercialism. I'm sorry, but under this rationale that you're presenting here, works by people like Masaki Kobayashi are put on essentially the same level as works by whoever the fuck the second unit director on Power Rangers was.

You can reductively call what I'm describing here a "hierarchy of validity" if you like, but there's just ZERO escaping the fact that one has INFINITELY more substance, and inherent social value, intellectual value, and artistic merit on its face than the other.

Your whole point here is sort of like saying "Sidney Lumet made films for a movie studio, so those films only exist to sell tickets. Clearly because of this, work like his is the same and no better than things like Transformers: Armada or whatever, which exists only to sell toys. One is made to sell tickets, the other to sell toys: its all the same thing, so it can all be judged on the same playing field."

No. No it *clearly* is not the same thing, nor can these things ever be sanely judged as being on the same playing field as one another. No disrespect intended Julie, but this is a fucking awful and horrifically reductive point about art in general that you're making.

I'll reiterate a crucially important point I made earlier: while most of Shonen manga is of course a vast, seemingly endless ocean of garbage, there HAS over the years bubbled up from it works of actual, honest to god literary merit. This has NEVER happened, nor will it likely EVER happen, with works that Masenko perfectly dubbed "Advertainment" (i.e. Toy Commercial Shows).

"One is made to sell comics, the other is made to sell toys" IS an absolutely, 1000% salient, vital distinction that makes a whole universe of a very real, substantive difference in what the end product will be or can ever even hope to achieve creatively.

Comics are both a commercialized commodity under capitalism, AND an intrinsically artistic, creative, narrative-driven medium: toys and merchandise on the other hand, by and large, are the former and NOT the latter. There's craftsmanship present sometimes within them, yes: but craftsmanship isn't always the same thing as art (even if they can often overlap one another many times).

If I'm wrong about any of this, then where's the Galaxy Express, Barefoot Gen, Hi no Tori, Apollo's Song, etc. equivalents among Advertainment/Toy Commercial shows like Digimon, Transformers, and their ilk? When do you expect we'll ever see a Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh franchise installment that will go down as significant classics that radically advanced storytelling or created something deeply, culturally meaningful in the same ways that Tezuka, Matsumoto, et al have done?

Fuck, the single most comically overly-cited example of the "very best" that the toy-shilling 'Mon franchises have ever produced is freaking Digimon Tamers... itself, as I just noted earlier, being little more than a heavily degraded, cheeseball recycled knockoff of the same author's very own earlier, vastly superior, more culturally significant, and far more critically acclaimed work.

When "Lain, but way shittier and dumber" is the very mountain-top best you got within this realm of media over the course of DECADES now, then its more than fair for me (and really, most anybody) to judge it as being intrinsically lesser in what its capable of producing than a medium that has produced incredible artistic giants like Tezuka, Nagai, Matsumoto, Koike, Mizuki, Toriyama, Ikegami, Maruo, Otomo, Takahashi, Urasawa, Ito, Inoue, etc. etc.

My oft-cited example in this thread so far of Barefoot Gen is a Shonen manga that was published in a Shonen magazine to sell comics to Japanese children, yeah: it also happened to turn out to be one of the all time greatest, definitive statements in anime or manga on the Hiroshima atomic bombing and the horrific impact that it had on Japanese society, and also simultaneously it ended up being an incredible, breathtaking portrait of and statement on human resilience, hope, courage, and universal love under the backdrop of one of the worst-ever atrocities of war in the last hundred years, shy only of The Holocaust (and now, er... more recent events too), something which easily stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest war/historical films ever made.

What do you think the over-under odds are that a cartoon created PURELY to sell toys from its outset will EVER produce a work that even comes within miles and miles of something like that? Examples like Gen, Apollo, Galaxy Express, etc. exist as a reminder that for all of the oceans upon oceans of Naruto-esque Battle Shonen junk and garbage that largely fills most Shonen publications... it is still fundamentally impossible, even for a largely overall Shonen-hating guy like myself, to ever completely dismiss or write-off ALL of it outright as being inherently worthless. The history of the very fucking medium itself and some of its best works that its produced makes that plainly self-evident.

If the day ever comes where we see something from a toy commercial franchise installment make some sort of legit, culturally important mark on the broader artistic landscape, then sure, I can eat all these words and be proven conclusively wrong on all of this. But I'm 99.999% positive that I won't ever be: because selling toys and merchandise intrinsically and on its face affords one WAY infinitely less room to create a meaningful artistic statement than does selling an otherwise inherently art, narrative, and creativity-driven medium like comics.

Even if the OVERWHELMING majority of what most comics produce is disposable crap... there will ALWAYS be shining examples of something genuinely special within them that stand out and apart as something of vast historical, artistic value. I'll make the "bold" (lol not really) prediction that this will NEVER, ever happen within the confines of a toy advert franchise like a Pokemon, Digimon, etc. And that's purely due to the very nature of what a toy advert allows and restricts within its confines.

Its why even if you want to be extra-extra harsh and say that there are only like say... 2% of comics in all of the medium's entire history that have legit lasting literary value, then that same category within the realm of toy commercial franchises will always sit at precisely 0%. Now, always, and forever.

So too does something who's primary creative spark was in a boardroom meeting compared to something who's creative spark was in an artist's studio (even if that artist is employed by a corporate publication: again, capitalistic world etc.).

I'm sorry, but there's NO fucking comparison to be made here. My view on this is far from "arbitrary" as you've dismissed it: its rooted in just plain observable history and frankly in common fucking sense.

The only point I was trying to make is that those sort of franchising works still lend themselves to being platforms for creating significant works of art for the industry that they're baked in—especially when you take a deeper look at those works and see the passion for them on display by the people creating them.

I'll close by adding further to Masenko's point on this about talented artists who get hired to work on these toy commercial shows "making Lemons out of Lemonade": the inherent nature of a toy commercial show makes it so that even the most earnest, talented artists who work on them more often than not have their work degraded by the project: they don't usually do much to elevate those projects.

Doesn't mean that those artists/animators/creators aren't incredibly talented, and it doesn't mean that their work should be vastly more appreciated. What it means though is that they deserve a FAR better platform to show their talents than this kind of garbage allows them. And even within the late-stage capitalistic hellscape in which we've been living for so many years, those better kinds of platforms DO still exist (albeit at a rapidly ever-shrinking rate).

I think you have it exactly backwards there Julie: and its because you seem to believe - if I'm not misunderstanding you at least, feel free to correct me if I am - that the nature of capitalism flattens out all art into existing within the same gutter of disposable commercialism in which we can all judge them accordingly as such.

And I fundamentally and vehemently disagree with that notion entirely (and frankly, so does most of the history of art and media in general): rather, its that great art rises out of and above capitalism, and that it does so in spite of capitalism, and stands the test of time as something that is anything but disposable.

Toy commercials, by their very nature of what they are at their very foundations, simply do not afford or allow the creative space or room for anything that can even even come close to rising above that station.

Or here, I can put it in a better, MUCH more succinct, punchier, TLDR way:

Film and literature (be it novels or comics) are artforms that have to deal with the bothersome capitalist drive to sell tickets and copies. Toy Commercial Cartoons/Advertainment Shows are actual personifications of capitalism ITSELF that have to deal with the bothersome pretense at pretending to act like an artform. This is why the former can actually produce great artists, while the latter simply uses them up like disposable resources.

There. Feel free to make that final paragraph my definitive statement on the matter.

[Majin Buu]

So, starting fresh with Dragon Ball....

I think Daima is low-key trying to do something like that, but it remains to be seen how that pans out (hopefully good).

I also think a full-on reboot would go a long way towards freeing up the staff of such a project to do their own thing without needing to adhere to existing continuity or the existing conventions of established Dragon Ball.

Like, a Son Goku that actively thinks about and processes the stuff that happens to him on screen/panel as opposed to simply reacting in the moment then moving on would feel out of character in established Dragon Ball. A reboot would be free to give us a Goku that's different like that without it feeling awkward and forced since those aspects would be part of that version of the character from the start.

I'm not interested in trying to force Dragon Ball as it's been established to become something it was never trying to be (and wasn't designed to be). As I've said before, if I want something Dragon Ball isn't giving me, I'll just go elsewhere to find it; but if Dragon Ball's IP holders were to actually greenlight a reboot and say something like "this is meant to be its own separate thing using Toriyama's original story as inspiration only", then I'd be curious enough to check it out because I do think there's potential for a version of Dragon Ball with a little more substance (be it emotional, thematic, etc.) and better writing to be successful.

[MasenkoHA]

Snip

Sorry, I feel like I'm not making my point as well as I should.

I didn't mean to argue Dragon Ball is automatically a more artistically valid series than Pokemon because the former was created to sell magazines so Toriyama had cigarette and beer money and the other was created to promote a video game.

The point I've been trying to make is Dragon Ball doesn't have an incentive to just completely replace the entire cast and still call it Dragon Ball. Advertainment series do have a reason to push for reboots. Once you replace the entire Dragon Ball cast (and I don't mean just demote Goku and put Gohan/Trunks/Oob/Pan at the forefront) it stops being Dragon Ball and its another kung fu series with ki blast and fart jokes. You can completely get rid of Satoshi and as long as the monsters are being captured in balls you can get fit in your pocket and identifiable creatures like Pikachu and Lucario and Charizard show up every now and then its still Pokemon.

I'm not here to claim Dragon Ball is superior because it doesn't exist primarily to sell video games just that it doesn't make sense to want the series to be treated like Yugioh, Digimon, Super Sentai/Power Rangers in how they keep the brand alive.

I'm also all for Dragon Ball being allowed to die. After an 11 year run in Shonen Jump and on Fuji tv, 508 episodes, 17 movies and 3 tv specials it really didn't NEED to come back and it doesn't need to continue. And I say that as someone who liked Super just fine and will eventually check Daima out.

[Kunzait_83]

Said point being that it's ultimately a question of what the raison d'être is for these different kinds of media.

Which, for "advertainment" series (as put a few posts above) is profit/merchandise first and anything else being an "along the way/on the side"-kind of thing (which depending on the series may not even remain that way for long).
Not so for those that aren't, like DB and others of its kind (while, of course, actually selling copies is a prerequisite for Shueisha or Kodansha to keep the manga in print).
Seinen titles being free of even that kind of condition.

Seinen titles are in absolutely no way "free" of the condition of selling copies. Literally almost NOTHING is in this world, sadly.

Seinen (and Josei, lest we forget those) are likewise published in Manga Magazines, same as Shonen and Shojo: the main difference is that Seinen and Josei are simply writing and playing to an older, much more mature audience, which VASTLY frees them up to explore denser topics in a vastly more freeing and thoughtful way than Shonen and Shojo largely ever could in 90% of most cases.

That doesn't mean that there are no Shonen or Shojo titles of value whatsoever (there obviously are, and I've named a bunch throughout), nor that all Seinen and Josei are inherently smarter and better always (there's PLENTY of dumb as fuck examples of trashy, disposable Seinen and Josei): just that the overall percentages are FAR more stacked in those directions by and large.

Thus it is that there are different tiers to the concept, and some have a more compelling one than others. It's just something to be acknowledged as a basic foundation in discussions like these, regardless of preference.

Contrary to what Julie said earlier, I don't particularly like to frame this as a "hierarchy". What I'm describing isn't NEARLY that strict: as noted, some brilliant (even downright out-and-out literary) examples of Shonen and Shojo exist, and there's more than a fair share of Seinen and Josei that are hot steaming garbage.

Its more about where are you more likely to find which? Which subset has more of what in greater quantities than the other? And why is that?

And Seinen and Josei tend to have vastly more in the way of genuinely challenging, more creatively experimental titles for the simple reason that they're aimed at full grown, adult men and women with vastly more education, knowledge, and general life experience (broadly speaking) than most any young child (on average) is likely going to.

ALL these age demographics however have to universally deal with the capitalistic need to "sell copies" of the Magazines they're published in of course. But, as to the point I was making earlier, selling a comic book - an intrinsically artistically and author-driven medium - puts ALL four Manga demographics at a clear and seismic advantage from their starting position over something who's sole, primary aim is to sell toys and merchandise: the latter of which is a "medium" (if we can even call it that) that is purely and 100% driven by boardroom committee and moving up profit margins, and with almost NO other genuinely artistic drive behind it otherwise.

Again, one of these things starts with some measure of creativity and eventually finds its way to commercial capitalism if it blows up enough: the other starts with commercial capitalism from the jump (as it is birthed in a company's boardroom rather than in an artist's studio), and ostensibly can maybe kind-of/sort-of stumble its way into competent craftsmanship of something that sort of mimics (but typically isn't really) art (generally on the strength of the actual artistic talent that gets hired to produce the stuff). Or as you put it, anything other than moving merch acting as a "along the way/on the side"-kind of thing.

Its less a "hierarchy" in my view than it is a matter of a set of structural confines and parameters that these industries set in place that work to nudge these things (intentionally or unintentionally) along into the most likely-given endpoints that they'll allow for.

Almost like a rat maze that's set up in such a way to make sure that Rat A (Shonen/Shojo) is most likely 8 times out of 10 going to end up making its way to Cheese A (a certain threshold of quality seen as suitable for average children in Japan), and that Rat B (Seinen/Josei) is most likely 8 times out of 10 going to end up making its way to Cheese B (the adult equivalent of Cheese A), etc.

Doesn't mean it'll ALWAYS work out that way (and it certainly doesn't, sometimes the "rats" in question end up at each other's different "cheeses" because life and artistic businesses are chaotic that way)... but that's how it usually tends to land most of the time, more often than not.

I'm also all for Dragon Ball being allowed to die. After an 11 year run in Shonen Jump and on Fuji tv, 508 episodes, 17 movies and 3 tv specials it really didn't NEED to come back and it doesn't need to continue. And I say that as someone who liked Super just fine and will eventually check Daima out.

1000% in agreement with this. We all know that the allure of money for a company like Toei means that it won't die (at least not yet), but really by all sane rights, DB should just be allowed to be laid to rest and moved on from. Its had MORE than enough of a run already, and clearly its done plenty beyond enough with itself to the point where people are starting to genuinely grasp at straws and stretch to find something new and fresh to do with it (that doesn't just turn it into something that isn't recognizably Dragon Ball anymore).

Really, if today's world in particular wasn't so fucking ruthlessly, single-mindedly, psychotically fixated on "perpetual corporate growth of profits at all costs", then something like DB would've been allowed to stay ended a LONG while back and none of these conversations would ever be had in the first place.

(Far more importantly, the whole world in general would be in a MUCH safer, saner, healthier place as well, but that's neither here nor there.)

[Hellspawn28]

To give Digimon credit where its due, Tamers aka Season 3 actually had a ton of character development and surprisingly dark underlying themes. Impmon's arc in particular was really well done, and had a ton of nuance.

And Adventure 1 and 2 were just straight up fun to watch.

As someone who still enjoys Digimon to a certain degree, Tamers is nowhere as dark as people make it out to be. People really overhype that show to death.

[MasenkoHA]

To give Digimon credit where its due, Tamers aka Season 3 actually had a ton of character development and surprisingly dark underlying themes. Impmon's arc in particular was really well done, and had a ton of nuance.

And Adventure 1 and 2 were just straight up fun to watch.

As someone who still enjoys Digimon to a certain degree, Tamers is nowhere as dark as people make it out to be. People really overhype that show to death.

Certainly nothing that I would consider inappropriate or too dark for its target audience of 6-9 year olds.

And if it's appropriate for children it's probably not as dark or cerebal as you think it is

[Hellspawn28]

Me: "Guys after spending something like 20 years in this community talking and getting to know a lot of you pretty well, I'm not so sure many of you all realize that there's a whole lot of deeper, more enriching stuff out there than just Shonen/kids stuff."

Kanz: "But Season 3 of Digimon was surprisingly dark!"

Me: "Ok, but like... there's even DARKER stuff out there than just Digimon. Certainly a whole lot deeper too. Anyone here ever read Teito Monogatari?"

Kanz: "Never heard of it... but I did read the first few volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh... those were really surprisingly scary!"

Me: "Yu-Gi-Oh is made for 6 year olds guys. And you're all like, anywhere from 18 to 36. If you want something horror, what about stuff made by Kazuo Umezu? (RIP) Or Suehiro Maruo?"

Kanz: "Who? Dunno about all that, but that one episode of One Piece where the invisible guy attacked Nami in the bathhouse was really terrifying! That was practically a rape scene almost!"

Me: "...ever seen Hollow Man then? There's a lot of great films by Paul Verhoeven that are all still really, really super relevant to the current zeitgeist..."

Kanz: "Or what about Mimikyu's design in Pokemon? That was really kinda disturbing!"

Me: "...there's a LOT of great horror out there. Even super recently! Anyone seen Barbarian yet? Or X? Crimes of the Future? Late Night With the Devil? Hereditary? Midsommar? Us? Mandy? The Lighthouse? The Substance?"

Kanz: "Oh! What about Ed, Edd, n Eddy Halloween special? That got kinda spooky."

Me: "Guys..."

Kanz: "You guys remember in Diamond and Pearl where they took someone to the Demon World? Man that was cool.."

Me: "Guys..."

Kanz: "I always thought Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive was super adult and mature. Majora's Mask always scared me a lot too..."

Me: "Guys, guys, guys... you're aware that there's stuff other than children's toy commercial shows that can go a whole HELLUVA lot more farther than any of this, right? ...right?"

Kanz: "....but Digimon Season 3 was surprisingly dark! And cerebral!"

Me:

The pop culture circle of Kanzenshuu reminds me of the segment in the Twilight Zone movie from Joe Dante. Where you had the adults only consists a food diet of ice cream, candy apples, potato chips, and hamburgers topped with peanut butter, while kids' cartoons play on TV around the clock. He predicted 21st century man children culture .

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I know Kunzait has brought this up many times in the past, but his point is not that advertisement-type shows can't be artistic or have deep subject matter, but that because they are kids media they will never have as much depth as older-skewing media.

People often point to a lot of kids shows and movies as having nuanced storytelling and subject matter and that's great, but as they are ultimately made for kids first and foremost they should serve as an introduction to that material rather than be a be-all-end-all or substitute for it.

As it pertains to Digimon Tamers, the examples fans mention of dark writing can be found in Serial Experiments Lain but with a greater level of sophistication and abstraction because the latter is not primarily made for kids.

I get it, because I love a lot of kids media, obviously Dragon Ball but as an adult I owe it to myself to also check out content made for my age group, which I do occasionally but not as much as I should. I've watched some shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Vampire Diaries, or even within the realm of anime Evangelion and Ghost In The Shell, which are all not intended for kids, but I do need to make time for more. In fact I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen Serial Experiments Lain yet .

[FinalForumPodcast]

I feel like maybe the the point got lost somewhere along the way.

While Dragon Ball exist to make money it doesn't exist specifically to promote a product like the various Yu-gi-oh series exist to sell the trading card game or Pokemon does to promote the video games (often asking as a sneak peak to feature video games by showcasing new Pokemon ahead of time especially in the Kanto season) or Digimon exist to promote Tamagotchi for boys (and the Tamers season even blatanly incorporated the trading card game into the narrative to sell that).

These series have a good reason to just completely ditch a cast and start fresh when the story is over because ultimately the product they're advertising has first priority. Taichi and friends story is complete but Bandai still wants to release a new wave of v-pets, time to start fresh.

Dragon Ball can ditch or reduce Goku and Vegeta's roles and pass the baton to the Saiyan/Earthling hybrid generations but there's no good reason to do a complete retool.

And yes advertainment series can hire people who make lemonades out of lemons. I don't doubt so and so animation director or head writer was really passionate about trying to elevate their assignment beyond "sell these toys" but the series will always only exist "to sell these toys"

Thank you. 100% all of this. No notes. Co-signed.

("Advertainment" is a PERFECT term to use for these kinds of shows btw, thank you, will be shamelessly stealing that one for all future use going forward.)

I think this gets to some of the heart of how Dragon Ball has changed since.........basically the end of GT.
Prior to then, the shows and manga WERE the product, and thus, however thin it was due to the nature of Shonen manga/anime, the STORY was the product.

Since then, things have shifted. In part, they shifted out of necessity. If there IS no show, or manga, then the product itself needs to shift. Dragon Ball became about video games, and toys, and merchandise, because that's all there was. The shift was gradual, because the series was being exported internationally WELL AFTER the end of GT in Japan, but eventually, we ran into a period of time where there was nothing BUT the next video game, and once that got adopted as the main revenue source for Dragon Ball, that shifted what Dragon Ball is, fundamentally. Bandai Namco numbers determine the success of Dragon Ball these days, not manga sales or show viewership. This happened during Kai. Kai did decent ratings...but didn't drum up new toy sales.

Merchandise drives Dragon Ball in 2024. (This holds true for almost every single major IP franchise in the 2020s)

[BWri]

Because Dragon Ball is ultimately Goku's story, and it would be near impossible to create a character good enough to fill his shoes.

If they were going to start fresh with new characters, you could argue that it might as well be a new IP, and not Dragon Ball.

Something like Star Wars can pull it off, but DB is so synonymous with Goku that people just wouldn't be interested without him in it.

I've heard this opinion so many times on this forum throughout the years and it still makes no sense. The series isn't called Goku it's called Dragon Ball. Any story could be told in this zany world and people would enjoy it. While Goku and co. are indeed propping the series up these days and I still do find them refreshing compared to other justice-minded heroes, it can be argued that they are also holding the series back from bigger potential with younger fans. I like where DB is right now, but to say a series without Goku isn't DB is just like saying Star Wars isn't Star Wars without Luke Skywalker. Even if you don't like the prequels or sequels to the original trilogy there's still compelling work such as KoToR and The Clone Wars to show that Star Wars is bigger than Luke. Goku's idiosyncrasies would be missed, sure, and I agree that his philosophies inform what the show is in its current state but that doesn't mean its what DB has to always be.

If they were going to start fresh with new characters, you could argue that it might as well be a new IP, and not Dragon Ball.

I would normally agree with this sentiment but DB has a very unique world and style that separates it from most other IP. That's the main appeal ... well, the main appeal outside of brand recognition ... it's the main appeal of why a creator would want to create in this IP. Dragon World is just such a fun, crazy, and adaptable place to tell stories with a unique history to color new characters with. In terms of existing IP, its one of the funnest sandboxes for a creator to play around in.

Now we can debate if a new series would sell all day. IMO, with the right creators and the right ideas DB will sell all day even with new characters

[90sDBZ]

To give Digimon credit where its due, Tamers aka Season 3 actually had a ton of character development and surprisingly dark underlying themes. Impmon's arc in particular was really well done, and had a ton of nuance.

And Adventure 1 and 2 were just straight up fun to watch.

Time and effort well spent Kunzait, as always.

Incidentally, whenever people keep repeating things like "But Season 3 of Digimon was surprisingly dark!" over and over and over in these kinds of discussion (which has happened many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times on here since my earliest days here, to the point where its become basically one of this communities' most well-worn cliches), this is all that I hear.

Also not for nothing, but the similarly cliched go-to counterpoint to this is that Serial Experiments Lain already exists guys. Same creator, was made years prior (giving Tamers even less reasons to exist), is WAY shorter and more concise, is made for a MUCH older audience, is 1000% less cringe and more impactful/substantive, and is just a vastly better, infinitely superior version of much of the same exact concepts and themes that people get so hung up on being present - in a greatly watered-down fashion - in Tamers. Go watch that instead.

There's literally zero justifiable reason to go with Tamers when Lain is right there and packs in a hundred times the substance and impact within an eighth of the time and with a zillion times less cringe toy commercial stupidity mixed in with the otherwise interesting cyberpunk themes.

Seriously, Tamers' "dark themes" is literally nothing more than just Chiaki Konaka recycling Lain's script into a watered/dumbed down version of itself for a stupid kids' toy commercial show that was in all likelihood little more than a quick paycheck gig for him. You're all adults here: go watch the real thing instead.

Me: "Guys after spending something like 20 years in this community talking and getting to know a lot of you pretty well, I'm not so sure many of you all realize that there's a whole lot of deeper, more enriching stuff out there than just Shonen/kids stuff."

Kanz: "But Season 3 of Digimon was surprisingly dark!"

Me: "Ok, but like... there's even DARKER stuff out there than just Digimon. Certainly a whole lot deeper too. Anyone here ever read Teito Monogatari?"

Kanz: "Never heard of it... but I did read the first few volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh... those were really surprisingly scary!"

Me: "Yu-Gi-Oh is made for 6 year olds guys. And you're all like, anywhere from 18 to 36. If you want something horror, what about stuff made by Kazuo Umezu? (RIP) Or Suehiro Maruo?"

Kanz: "Who? Dunno about all that, but that one episode of One Piece where the invisible guy attacked Nami in the bathhouse was really terrifying! That was practically a rape scene almost!"

Me: "...ever seen Hollow Man then? There's a lot of great films by Paul Verhoeven that are all still really, really super relevant to the current zeitgeist..."

Kanz: "Or what about Mimikyu's design in Pokemon? That was really kinda disturbing!"

Me: "...there's a LOT of great horror out there. Even super recently! Anyone seen Barbarian yet? Or X? Crimes of the Future? Late Night With the Devil? Hereditary? Midsommar? Us? Mandy? The Lighthouse? The Substance?"

Kanz: "Oh! What about Ed, Edd, n Eddy Halloween special? That got kinda spooky."

Me: "Guys..."

Kanz: "You guys remember in Diamond and Pearl where they took someone to the Demon World? Man that was cool.."

Me: "Guys..."

Kanz: "I always thought Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive was super adult and mature. Majora's Mask always scared me a lot too..."

Me: "Guys, guys, guys... you're aware that there's stuff other than children's toy commercial shows that can go a whole HELLUVA lot more farther than any of this, right? ...right?"

Kanz: "....but Digimon Season 3 was surprisingly dark! And cerebral!"

Me:

You're misrepresenting my point.

Tamers may very well be a watered down version of Serial Experiments Lain, but for what's essentially a toy commercial it's way better than it needs to be. The fact that it's kid friendly is a net positive, because it automatically reaches a much wider audience.

And you keep making this strange broad assumption that anyone who still watches Shonen as an adult does so exclusively, and hasn't watched anything more mature beyond that.

It's extremely common for people to still revisit their childhood shows, while also watching more mature stuff. I'd argue that's the case for the majority of people on this forum, and a good chunk of the wider DB fandom.

[Zephyr]

If someone is interested in seeing a story set in this world, with the elements specifically tied to it (i.e. the Dragon Balls themselves, the alien planets and realms), obviously people can't get that from some other unrelated series. To say that there's absolutely nothing unique or valuable about the Dragon Ball setting is just plain disingenuous.

Dragon World is just such a fun, crazy, and adaptable place to tell stories with a unique history to color new characters with. In terms of existing IP, its one of the funnest sandboxes for a creator to play around in.

I don't disagree with these two points. I do think the Dragon World is a fun and interesting setting. Almost ten years ago I listed the world, and seeing it expanded, as some of my favorite things about the series in general:

- The characters and the world itself are my favorite parts of it
...
- Pretty much any kind of universe expanding story material beyond simply new manga or anime (guidebook tidbits, interview tidbits, backstory of DBO, etc)

And, indeed, the world building stuff in Daima is definitely activating some serotonin for me.

All that being said, though, the world and setting itself hasn't been nearly as high on my list of "favorite things about the series" for a while. I hesitate to say something as loaded as I "grew out of that" (partly because it's not true: see the Daima comment), but I've certainly come to appreciate other things more instead, the more I engage with the actual work and go ever deeper down the rabbit hole of its production and inspirations.

Toriyama being a funnies-writer and engaging in a somewhat improvised serialization for a near decade makes the whole comic feel like a really fun standup routine, in a weird way. The way that various kung fu and wuxia works and storytelling tropes are remixed and distilled through his sense of humor, the way his comical stylings gradually morph into something genuinely cool and badass, is just really awesome, and that was done while centering on Son Goku, whose decidedly-controversial character development is one of the more interesting aspects of the text itself to me.

That specific work, which was created through that specific process, while depicting the life of that specific character, is what keeps me coming back. That's not to downplay the works, contributions, and stylings of the countless others who have left their mark on the IP, but when I'm thinking about what I want out of a new DB thing (if it's going to happen at all), it's that original comic whose spirit, and whose protagonist's unending quest for greater strength and challenge, that I want to see continued.

I'm not opposed to a new story that focuses on other members of the cast, or even has a completely new cast of characters. But that premise doesn't have inherent merit to me. Who are these characters? What are they like? Who's writing this story? How are they writing it? What's their style? What arcs will these characters be going through? Those are the sorts of things I need to be sold on. "But you'll get to spend more time in this world!" just isn't a big selling point to me by itself, the way it might have been in 2015.