Non-thread-worthy discussions

[jjgp1112]

Ah, the classic "this doesn't concern me... Until it happens to me". Typical.

I think I said everything I had to say about this, so.... Good luck out there, I guess?

I'll say it again: stop twisting people's words to mean whatever's convenient to you. Robo said he doesn't think there's an agenda from the mods to police opinions nor that he's experienced hostility from the majority of users....and you twisted that into "I dont give a shit about your problem" because otherwise you'd have to admit that this might be a you problem. I've been there too, join the club!

and that's to say nothing of you deciding to take my self-deprecating description of myself 100% literally to further your martyrdom

[Noah]

Do anyone knows where are the threads of early DBS episodes in this forum?

[MasenkoHA]

For something that is non worthy of its own thread, this is whole thing of where the movies could take place during the tv series sounds like it deserves its own thread.

A few threads like that have existed before.

It's definitely a topic that pops up a lot, especially in an era of nerdom that's obsessed with canon and non-canon, alternate timelines and multiple universes.

[JulieYBM]

For something that is non worthy of its own thread, this is whole thing of where the movies could take place during the tv series sounds like it deserves its own thread.

A few threads like that have existed before.

It's definitely a topic that pops up a lot, especially in an era of nerdom that's obsessed with canon and non-canon, alternate timelines and multiple universes.

I wish this wasn't such a big thing. People really trade in their media literacy for mindlessly just collecting information when they do that. We should be decentering the importance of canonocity and centering the themes of these stories over whether something matches one thing or another.

[MasenkoHA]

For something that is non worthy of its own thread, this is whole thing of where the movies could take place during the tv series sounds like it deserves its own thread.

A few threads like that have existed before.

It's definitely a topic that pops up a lot, especially in an era of nerdom that's obsessed with canon and non-canon, alternate timelines and multiple universes.

I wish this wasn't such a big thing. People really trade in their media literacy for mindlessly just collecting information when they do that. We should be decentering the importance of canonocity and centering the themes of these stories over whether something matches one thing or another.

I remember when fans acted like they were no longer allowed to enjoy GT because Super made it non-canon (even though GT was always treated as non-canon). As if Super disregarding GT completely erased GT from existence and it wasn't a series they could still watch on DVD or Hulu. Like...just enjoy things y'all. "Return my Gohan" not fitting between Dragon Ball and DBZ no matter what mental gymnastics fans pull doesn't prevent it from being my single favorite Dragon Ball work.

I agree putting emphasis on the importance of canon has ruined media consumption. It's why I loathed those canon and filler list you see online.

[JulieYBM]

A few threads like that have existed before.

It's definitely a topic that pops up a lot, especially in an era of nerdom that's obsessed with canon and non-canon, alternate timelines and multiple universes.

I wish this wasn't such a big thing. People really trade in their media literacy for mindlessly just collecting information when they do that. We should be decentering the importance of canonocity and centering the themes of these stories over whether something matches one thing or another.

I remember when fans acted like they were no longer allowed to enjoy GT because Super made it non-canon (even though GT was always treated as non-canon). As if Super disregarding GT completely erased GT from existence and it wasn't a series they could still watch on DVD or Hulu. Like...just enjoy things y'all. "Return my Gohan" not fitting between Dragon Ball and DBZ no matter what mental gymnastics fans pull doesn't prevent it from being my single favorite Dragon Ball work.

I agree putting emphasis on the importance of canon has ruined media consumption. It's why I loathed those canon and filler list you see online.

Same here. There are so many fun little projects in these longer series that are artistically worth checking out on their own. I think the worshiping of canon is a major disservice the arts and the artists who make them.

[Chuquita]

It would be fun to have more non-canon stories. I feel like it would widen the opportunities for what type of plots writers could come up with.

[dbgtFO]

Do anyone knows where are the threads of early DBS episodes in this forum?

They were somehow lost due to a bug or something with the Kanzenshuu database. It was a whole thing and they tried to get it back, but evidently couldn't. This is also why you can see a lot of users have a disparity between how many posts there are counted on your profile and how many posts you can actually search up, when you go and click on their post marker on their profile(in my case I have 251 less posts).

[Grimlock]

This is also why you can see a lot of users have a disparity between how many posts there are counted on your profile and how many posts you can actually search up, when you go and click on their post marker on their profile(in my case I have 251 less posts).

And I'm only realizing this now. Interesting to know, though. I have 208 less posts.

[The Monkey King]

It's why I loathed those canon and filler list you see online.

To be fair filler tends to be of a lesser quality than canon material. There's no reason to watch 70 episodes of boring Naruto filler when you can skip it.

No one really cares for DBS' Copy Vegeta Arc. And lo and behold it's an arc that wasn't based on Toriyama's notes nor was it in the DBS manga. It's filler and it shows.

[MasenkoHA]

It's why I loathed those canon and filler list you see online.

To be fair filler tends to be of a lesser quality than canon material. There's no reason to watch 70 episodes of boring Naruto filler when you can skip it.

There's no reason to watch any show where 70 consecutive episodes are bad or boring. Regardless if it's filler or not

If that many episodes are bad maybe the show is just terrible.

No one really cares for DBS' Copy Vegeta Arc. And lo and behold it's an arc that wasn't based on Toriyama's notes nor was it in the DBS manga. It's filler and it shows.

And it was a perfectly watchable and semi enjoyable few episodes. Not a series highlight, but I'll sooner revisit those episodes before ever watching the Beerus and Golden Freeza arcs ever again.

[Robo4900]

IMO there is a deeper discussion to be had about the varying quality of adaptation-original material, vs material taken from the source.

But I think you need to start from a place more nuanced than "filler sucks"

Hell, even the word "filler" is loaded because traditionally "filler" is synonymous with "padding", which suggests terrible pacing. And yet, some of the best episodes of Dragon Ball are "filler." Is the driving school episode badly paced? What about Goku Goes to Demon Land?

How about the Bardock and Trunks TV specials? Those were 90% anime-original material. You wouldn't call them "filler", would you?

It's certainly true that if there's a particularly bad stretch of story, or a stretch that's particularly incongruous with everything else, it's probably one of the added bits. InoShikaCho, Fake Namek, Bulma fighting crabs... But for every one of those, there's the glorious character-building training material in the Saiyan arc, or Goku fighting those guys who imprison peoples' souls in a gourd...

My point is: "Filler" isn't fundamentally bad. If it was, no one would watch episodic TV like Star Trek, Doctor Who, or Columbo. What's bad is bad episodes. If what you want is the author's original story, just read the damn manga instead.

[JulieYBM]

Any issues with anime-original episodes tend to be due to a refusal to commit to the story in fear of contradicting the original work or because it is designed to be a low-priority episode for the staff, therefore the animation isn't as good. I think that in the case of Dragon Ball Super, it had a set of anime-original episoes that actually were conceptually very solid—like the Copy Vegeta and Gokuu assassination episodes—and would have stood to be improved if they had had more resources and committed more to using them to develop the characters.

[Robo4900]

Well, the problem with Super is that even the main storyline episodes were badly-written. So having the same team write completely-original material – particularly with the problems you laid out, with limited budget and time – is going to turn out bad.

[Shaddy]

I think the worshiping of canon is a major disservice the arts and the artists who make them.

My half-hearted defense of this (even though I absolutely agree with the spirit of the point, which is that people who judge a given work based purely on whether it fits into continuity or has "plot holes" [itself one of the most misused terms in English language media discussion]), is that what is or isn't "canon" does contribute to our understanding of a story's themes and the experiences of the characters in it. People are shaped by their experiences, so defining what those experiences actually are can play a meaningful role in understanding their character.

I mean, this doesn't go suuuper deep with regards to Dragon Ball, but just look at how our perception of saiyan society and how we talk about them shifted as the portrayal seen in Minus and Broly has somewhat overwritten the Bardock special, which was previously (at least to an extent more than usual anime filler) considered canon. How Bardock as a character feels way different as a result of the Granolah arc. If you try to analyze him in the special based on the traits he had in more recent manga outings, it's probably gonna feel like either you or the show is doing something wrong.

There's no reason to watch any show where 70 consecutive episodes are bad or boring. Regardless if it's filler or not

I don't think this is a good way to view things. If a show only has one bad episode, does that make it a better show? What if it's only six episodes long? In Naruto's case, that's 70 filler episodes out of what, several hundred? How about The Simpsons, or Doctor Who? Those shows have lots of great and terrible episodes, because they were made continuously over the course of decades by an ever-evolving set of people that changed depending on the era and even from season to season or week to week. This goes even further with anime filler, because adaptations often are constructed by completely different people than their sources.

[MasenkoHA]

I don't think this is a good way to view things. If a show only has one bad episode, does that make it a better show? What if it's only six episodes long?

I mean, yes, if a show only has 6 episodes and only one episode is bad then it is a better show than the show with 500+ episodes that has 70 consecuive episodes that are allegedly so bad even the fans say you should skip them.

This "suffer through this long stretch of bad episodes or wait until someone gives you a list of skippable episodes" mentality fandoms adopt aint it for me. If a show becames that bad for that long I'm abandoning it long before SEVENTY bad episodes in a row.

In Naruto's case, that's 70 filler episodes out of what, several hundred? How about The Simpsons, or Doctor Who? Those shows have lots of great and terrible episodes, because they were made continuously over the course of decades by an ever-evolving set of people that changed depending on the era and even from season to season or week to week. This goes even further with anime filler, because adaptations often are constructed by completely different people than their sources.

Doctor Who, to my understanding, operates something akin to Super Sentai where it reboots every so often with a new."Doctor" so if you don't like one Doctor Who series you can drop it like a bad habit wait until the next Doctor and hope the new one is good.

Simpsons is like the go to example for a show that peoppe stopped watching because it stopped being good. It's also so episodic you can come in at any time, leave at any time, and come back at any time. Someone who abandoned the show around season 12 but randomly decided to watch an episode from season 25 becausen it sounded interesting is going to be a-okay

Back to Naruto if the filler is so bad and last that long maybe it's best to abandon the anime and read the manga instead?

[Zephyr]

Simpsons is like the go to example for a show that peoppe stopped watching because it stopped being good. It's also so episodic you can come in at any time, leave at any time, and come back at any time. Someone who abandoned the show around season 12 but randomly decided to watch an episode from season 25 becausen it sounded interesting is going to be a-okay

Back to Naruto if the filler is so bad and last that long maybe it's best to abandon the anime and read the manga instead?

I mean, at the same time you can easily just skip the filler arc and be just about as a-okay as you would be in the Simpsons example, right? That would be the path of least resistance, especially if part of the reason you're watching an anime adaptation in the first place is to see the manga's story animated and voiced.

Granted, I only watched a bit of Naruto back in the day; I have no idea if its filler arcs introduce material that is considered essential for later parts of its adaptation of the source material.

[MasenkoHA]

Simpsons is like the go to example for a show that peoppe stopped watching because it stopped being good. It's also so episodic you can come in at any time, leave at any time, and come back at any time. Someone who abandoned the show around season 12 but randomly decided to watch an episode from season 25 becausen it sounded interesting is going to be a-okay

Back to Naruto if the filler is so bad and last that long maybe it's best to abandon the anime and read the manga instead?

I mean, at the same time you can easily just skip the filler arc and be just about as a-okay as you would be in the Simpsons example, right? That would be the path of least resistance, especially if part of the reason you're watching an anime adaptation in the first place is to see the manga's story animated and voiced.

Granted, I only watched a bit of Naruto back in the day; I have no idea if its filler arcs introduce material that is considered essential for later parts of its adaptation of the source material.

Sure, and I kind of lost my own point saying someone could jump back into The Simpsons if they're inclined. The reality is for the most part people generally think The Simpsons got bad sometime in the early 2000s and most of them stopped watching.


I understand wanting to see a manga you enjoy brought to life in animation, but if said adaptation is so bad and bogged down with endless filler (that the fandom seems to universally agree is bad and boring?) it's probably not worth watching.

Maybe not the best example since it's a movie and not a tv series but The Killing Joke animated film is super faithful to the graphic novel...when it gets to that part. But the first 20 or so minutes was all new material and it's universally hated. It doesn't go with the style and tone of the comic book at all and it takes the criticism of the source material being misogynistic and makes it so much worse. By the time you get to the actual adaptation of the comic who cares? It's already been tainted by Act 1. I would't advise someone to watch the movie but skip the first 20 or so minutes of original material, I would tell them the movie is crap and just read the graphic novel.

[Zephyr]

I understand wanting to see a manga you enjoy brought to life in animation, but if said adaptation is so bad and bogged down with endless filler (that the fandom seems to universally agree is bad and boring?) it's probably not worth watching.

Maybe not the best example since it's a movie and not a tv series but The Killing Joke animated film is super faithful to the graphic novel...when it gets to that part. But the first 20 or so minutes was all new material and it's universally hated. It doesn't go with the style and tone of the comic book at all and it takes the criticism of the source material being misogynistic and makes it so much worse. By the time you get to the actual adaptation of the comic who cares? It's already been tainted by Act 1. I would't advise someone to watch the movie but skip the first 20 or so minutes of original material, I would tell them the movie is crap and just read the graphic novel.

Right, but if it's specifically a filler arc with a clear beginning and end that is souring the experience, it's a pretty easy thing to simply cut from the viewing schedule, as opposed to, say, fast forwarding for a specific set of minutes of an individual film. If the filler is weaved into the adapted material and that is bogging the experience down, then sure I'd be willing to say it's not worth watching. But if it's a filler arc, I think it's more like an easily removed growth as opposed to a problem that permeates the whole experience.

Though, trust and believe, if I ever for some reason decide to really watch Naruto, I won't be skipping any of those filler arcs, personally.

[JulieYBM]

I think the worshiping of canon is a major disservice the arts and the artists who make them.

My half-hearted defense of this (even though I absolutely agree with the spirit of the point, which is that people who judge a given work based purely on whether it fits into continuity or has "plot holes" [itself one of the most misused terms in English language media discussion]), is that what is or isn't "canon" does contribute to our understanding of a story's themes and the experiences of the characters in it. People are shaped by their experiences, so defining what those experiences actually are can play a meaningful role in understanding their character.

I mean, this doesn't go suuuper deep with regards to Dragon Ball, but just look at how our perception of saiyan society and how we talk about them shifted as the portrayal seen in Minus and Broly has somewhat overwritten the Bardock special, which was previously (at least to an extent more than usual anime filler) considered canon. How Bardock as a character feels way different as a result of the Granolah arc. If you try to analyze him in the special based on the traits he had in more recent manga outings, it's probably gonna feel like either you or the show is doing something wrong.

I can't remember a single thing about the Granola arc, but I will say that based purely off of Dragon Ball Super: Broli and the brief appearances of Bardock in the original manga potentially meaning to capture that the Bardock special was canon to it...like...I just gotta shrug, honestly? I don't think the Bardock special is all that, wait for it, special.

While I agree that canon does often contribute to our understanding of a story's themes and the characters' arcs, I don't necessarily think that's a hard and fast rule that needs to be followed. While I think the Sayan arc and Artificial Human arcs would have been improved if they had kept calling back to the anime-original episodes of Gohan growing up in the wilderness, I don't necessarily think that, say, they needed to follow those episodes precisely to fix some of the issues present in later Gohan storylines (although it would certainly be easier and really exciting to see a future story reference those episodes and actually affect how an older Gohan functions as a character instead of whatever shit we get now post-1995).

Well, whatever. We don't even necessarily disagree.

Back to Naruto if the filler is so bad and last that long maybe it's best to abandon the anime and read the manga instead?

My hot take is that there are some actually good and fun episodes and story arcs in there. Fans like to complain about the filler, but that's just general fandom narrative bullshit. It's not like any of these people are actually giving a critical look at the episodes beyond, "Did these episodes adapt shit that was in the comic." I'm not saying every episode was good—far from it—but there's definitely a few good anime-original episodes in that 80 episode stretch, to say nothing of NARUTO Shippuuden having some good episodes and arcs that tie into the general themes of the series, too. I'm still obsessed with Murata Masahiko's NARUTO Episode #146.

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