Dragon Ball Super is Not Modern Anymore

[JulieYBM]

The admin. And I'm a male, so no gender-switching as a poke will do.
Anyway, I'm done posting in this topic. I said all I needed to, better tell that kid who spends his day breaking my comment into phrases.

You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by just taking the time to create an actual thought out first post that engaged with the topic instead of being a weirdo this whole time or not posting at all. Good grief.

Lol look who's talking? I'm not into wasting any time over any of you. That's just how people who know what's worthwhile do. Even DBS sucked less than your (the lot) tantrums here.

Honey, your signature literally has you complaining about how nobody wants to reply to your threads. That's the weirdest tantrum you can pull lol

[Benjamin-Simons-91]

You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by just taking the time to create an actual thought out first post that engaged with the topic instead of being a weirdo this whole time or not posting at all. Good grief.

Lol look who's talking? I'm not into wasting any time over any of you. That's just how people who know what's worthwhile do. Even DBS sucked less than your (the lot) tantrums here.

Honey, your signature literally has you complaining about how nobody wants to reply to your threads. That's the weirdest tantrum you can pull lol

My signature tries to find answers to my questions, keep the act going, I can see your anger. Not that I care. Lol man, don't get too harsh over a cartoon.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Honey, your signature literally has you complaining about how nobody wants to reply to your threads. That's the weirdest tantrum you can pull lol

He even sent me one of his unanswered topics in private messages once lol

My signature tries to find answers to my questions, keep the act going, I can see your anger. Not that I care. Lol man, don't get too harsh over a cartoon.

I thought you weren't going to waste any more precious time on the likes of us because "That's just how people who know what's worthwhile do" so what are you doing man

Also, I felt like posting this, for no other reason than it being pretty interesting... Seems like history repeats itself. Is everyone out to get you or are you actually a little bit toxic? Who knows

[VegettoEX]

This part of the conversation is over. Thank you!

[jjgp1112]

The point I ultimately wanted to make was that things change and what was once 'new' will ultimately become as relatively 'old' as anything before it. I don't think staunchly cutting off what counts as 'old Dragon Ball' at 1997 (or 1998-1999, where Gokuu was appearing in Dr. Slump's second animated series) is feasible. In ither words, it's inevitable that 'old Dragon Ball' will not always only refer to series and films from the 1980s and 1990s.

It's true that things do inevitably change, and over time things age.

But it's also worth acknowledging that things don't always change at the same pace, or in the same way, consistently across gaps in time. I think of images like this that make it clear that things many of us might still think of as feeling 'recent' are actually super old.

Spoiler:

The gap in time between the Sega Master System and the PlayStation 3 is the same gap in time between the Xbox 360 and the Switch 2. Yes, that feels crazy partly because "I was a teenager when the 360 came out, and time moves faster now that I'm an adult". But it's also true that the PS3 simply was a way more clearly noticeable leap from what the Master System could do, compared to what we'd see going from the Xbox 360 to the Switch 2. It's felt for a while now that "cutting edge visuals in video games" has reached a point of diminishing returns.

My point being: not every 10 year gap is created equally. I think Vegard Aune's point about HD and widescreen kind of maps onto my point about video game graphics. Sometimes there's just a line, and two things on one side of it feel more akin to one another than either do to something chronologically-closer that's on the other side. It's not for nothing that while talking to a friend of mine about various DB sequels (he's watching Z for the first time, for context), he told me: "GT is the best one cause it's not HD and DB looks weird in HD". Now he's half-joking here, but that comment is rooted in things falling on different sides of a decidedly-noticeable line. He's not an entrenched anime viewer, either.

As a whole, this is why the early 2000s feels less old than the 80s did in the early 2000s - you can tell somethings from the 80s just by looking at it due to the technological limitations of the time, whereas progress has become more subtle now to the point where unless you got the cultural nuances of the time, 2005 stuff looks like they could've happened last week.

[Zephyr]

I mean, I'd call the 2000s digital era of anime painfully dated by now, too. Dragon Ball Super winds up looking much older than other anime from 2015 because it's still colored and processed the same way that a lot of Toei anime were in 2005.

It's a crude comparison, but early digital paint stuff conpared to modern post-processing is much closer to black-and-white anime and early cel painted anime or early cel painted anime and later 1990s cel painted anime.

I'm not savvy on the production techniques and jargon and all that, I'm going simply off of my eyes and how the shit hits them. And based on my eyes, yeah I can kinda agree, because Super (2015) basically looked the same to me as the Kai openings, Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans, and Episode of Bardock. And then Super Dragon Ball Heroes continued looking the same to me until it switched to CG in 2023. So, yeah, I'd say Super (2015) looked like "some 2009 shit" to me, and in that regard I could call it dated. But along that line of reasoning I think we could/should have been saying "Dragon Ball Super is not modern" 10 years ago, as well.

But despite that, nothing from the Kai openings to pre-CG Heroes, with Super (2015) in the middle, looks old to me the way stuff from the 90's and back do. Bad, sure, but not old. I'm not denying that production techniques have improved and will continue to do so, but again, there's that line. Maybe it's the presence (or absence) of film grain that's making the difference to my eyes? I suppose different qualities will be more noticeable to different eyes.

As a whole, this is why the early 2000s feels less old than the 80s did in the early 2000s - you can tell somethings from the 80s just by looking at it due to the technological limitations of the time, whereas progress has become more subtle now to the point where unless you got the cultural nuances of the time, 2005 stuff looks like they could've happened last week.

Exactly, that might be a better way to phrase it: some progress is much more subtle than others. Whatever improvements have been happening in anime production for the past 20 years, it's a lot more subtle to my eyes than, say, the absence of film grain. I'd say the next least subtle change has been the increasing presence of CG in anime, because that often takes me out of it when I notice, which tends to dampen my enjoyment of whatever it is I'm watching.

[Dr. Casey]

The "2005 seems like the present" idea applies more to live-action than anime. 2005 anime is starkly different from the present; if you're presented with screenshots from 2005 anime and screenshots from 2025 anime, it's basically impossible to mix them up. That holds true until 2011 or 2012, which to me felt like an incredibly rapid modernization. Anime from 2010 itself are also distinctly, unmistakably dated and look very 2000s. A lot of anime from 2012 I would have trouble dating them if I was unfamiliar with them.

[Zephyr]

2005 anime is starkly different from the present; if you're presented with screenshots from 2005 anime and screenshots from 2025 anime, it's basically impossible to mix them up. That holds true until 2011 or 2012, which to me felt like an incredibly rapid modernization. Anime from 2010 itself are also distinctly, unmistakably dated and look very 2000s. A lot of anime from 2012 I would have trouble dating them if I was unfamiliar with them.

That might again just be a thing for trained eyes, because I'm not sure what's supposed to be extremely obvious about the difference between this screenshot of Code Geass from 2006 (apparently) and this one of Dungeon Meshi from 2024. Unless their respective artstyles and character designs are the period-specific tells, here. Or maybe the Code Geass shot is from some Blu-ray remaster. I am not sure.

[MasenkoHA]

I think if nothing else the ubiquitous use of cell phones but absence of smart phones will usually quickly date something to 2001-2008 ish

Also when the characters talk about the Internet like a common part of life but its not literally in their pocket and social media hasn’t dominated the conversation that’s also the big giveaway the movie or show is from the 2000s

[Dr. Casey]

It helps to have more experience with anime from the relevant time periods, obviously, and Code Geass is harder to type since it has an art style that isn't very indicative of the period, CLAMP being pretty idiosyncratic in general. It's also more obvious in motion. Precure ED 1 is from 2004 and should be overwhelmingly obvious that this 90s-looking thing is not a new series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz7Clw9TL_8

[PhantomSaiyan]

2005 anime is starkly different from the present; if you're presented with screenshots from 2005 anime and screenshots from 2025 anime, it's basically impossible to mix them up. That holds true until 2011 or 2012, which to me felt like an incredibly rapid modernization. Anime from 2010 itself are also distinctly, unmistakably dated and look very 2000s. A lot of anime from 2012 I would have trouble dating them if I was unfamiliar with them.

That might again just be a thing for trained eyes, because I'm not sure what's supposed to be extremely obvious about the difference between this screenshot of Code Geass from 2006 (apparently) and this one of Dungeon Meshi from 2024. Unless their respective artstyles and character designs are the period-specific tells, here. Or maybe the Code Geass shot is from some Blu-ray remaster. I am not sure.

Spoiler:

I think that if we want to see the subtle differerences it would be better to compare 2 shots from the same franchise, code geass and dungeon meshi have such different styles and at direction that it doesn't feel like a fair comparison

It would be better to maybe compare it to the more modern code geass releases, granted the differences still won't be massive or anything like that, I think it's mainly the coloring that changed

[Dr. Casey]

Sorry, I didn't consider that the change is only obvious to those who watch a significant amount of anime. My mistake there. The shift is indeed about character design and art style moreso than technical quality (which has also improved - I remember thinking to myself in 2018 that backgrounds in TV anime were reaching a level that, in 2010, was confined to anime movies - though character designs are the much more immediately obvious, clear-cut change). For a change so dramatic that even those unfamiliar would be able to detect it reliably, you'd probably have to go further back. The 60s are the only 100% freebie decade since anime was almost entirely black-and-white until 1968, minus a few shows like Kimba. The 70s should be close to a freebie, I'd imagine the 80s would be easy as well. The 90s would likely be the shift. 1990 anime is pretty crusty, but I could see an extremely pretty late 90s series like the 1997 Slayers Try looking contemporary to someone who knows little to nothing about anime.

[Zephyr]

I think that if we want to see the subtle differerences it would be better to compare 2 shots from the same franchise, code geass and dungeon meshi have such different styles and at direction that it doesn't feel like a fair comparison

I'm not sure that seeing differences within the same franchise would necessarily be indicative of industry trends, though. Using just DB as an example: Kai (2009)'s openings, Episode of Bardock, Super (2015), and pre-CG SDBH look the same to me, yet they collectively touch 3 different decades, even if just barely. Meanwhile, Broly has a look wildly different from that, in 2018, sandwiched between Super (2015) and pre-CG SDBH. Daima looks yet different, but it's only a year apart from the final pre-CG SDBH episodes.

If DB is simply an outlier here that only looks the same (barring a couple of examples) for 14 years due to stagnation, by all means give an example from the same franchise, for the sake of a more fair comparison.

Sorry, I didn't consider that the change is only obvious to those who watch a significant amount of anime. My mistake there. The shift is indeed about character design and art style moreso than technical quality (which has also improved - I remember thinking to myself in 2018 that backgrounds in TV anime were reaching a level that, in 2010, was confined to anime movies - though character designs are the much more immediately obvious, clear-cut change). For a change so dramatic that even those unfamiliar would be able to detect it reliably, you'd probably have to go further back. The 60s are the only 100% freebie decade since anime was almost entirely black-and-white until 1968, minus a few shows like Kimba. The 70s should be close to a freebie, I'd imagine the 80s would be easy as well. The 90s would likely be the shift. 1990 anime is pretty crusty, but I could see an extremely pretty late 90s series like the 1997 Slayers Try looking contemporary to someone who knows little to nothing about anime.

No worries. Though, as mentioned yesterday, my non-anime-fan friend likes GT's look specifically on the grounds that it doesn't have a certain look that both Super and Daima seem to share, as different as they look from each other. Now, that is anecdotal, but it's at least a test for that hypothetical.

If character design and art style are what we're talking about, I can't really see it either. The stuff I'm replying to with Julie is that Super (2015) looks like some 00's anime. And it certainly looks like the DB Kai openings, which began in 09. But I wouldn't say that the Kai openings, or Episode of Bardock, Super (2015), or pre-CG SDBH have a similar art style to Code Geass. On the flip, I wouldn't say that Daima looks like it's of the same art style as Dungeon Meshi.

[PhantomSaiyan]

I think that if we want to see the subtle differerences it would be better to compare 2 shots from the same franchise, code geass and dungeon meshi have such different styles and at direction that it doesn't feel like a fair comparison

I'm not sure that seeing differences within the same franchise would necessarily be indicative of industry trends, though. Using just DB as an example: Kai (2009)'s openings, Episode of Bardock, Super (2015), and pre-CG SDBH look the same to me, yet they collectively touch 3 different decades, even if just barely. Meanwhile, Broly has a look wildly different from that, in 2018, sandwiched between Super (2015) and pre-CG SDBH. Daima looks yet different, but it's only a year apart from the final pre-CG SDBH episodes.

If DB is simply an outlier here that only looks the same (barring a couple of examples) for 14 years due to stagnation, by all means give an example from the same franchise, for the sake of a more fair comparison.

Code Geass was a good example to bring up because it also has an anime that came out last year, and using it as a comparison furthers your point because the only noticeable changes like I've said is improved colors and post production effects, but even then it's not even that noticeable that one would look at it and think it's a completely new era of anime

[Dr. Casey]

It's just something you get a feel for with exposure. Mainly centered around the shape and design of the eyes.






All 2005-2010 examples. It's not necessarily a dramatic change or something that's different in a way that's better or worse, but it's enough that almost anyone who's seen a sizable amount of anime from the 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s could easily say whether a screenshot from a show they've never seen before is from the 2000s or not (with some exceptions for stylized series that don't adhere to the style of the time as much, Code Geass being an example - not to mention a high-budget show with production values more common in 10s anime, so it looks more contemporary than most 2006 shows). It's not an extremely striking difference, but the brain is designed to distinguish thousands of faces and voices so minor differences can be easy to discern. Again it's something you pick up easily with a significant amount of exposure, it's not something you're likely to see with a handful of screenshots. Dragon Ball fans can easily distinguish SSJs despite them being extremely similar to each other, and distinguishing 00s from 10s and 20s is likewise extremely easy and automatic if you've watched enough examples of both.

[JulieYBM]

I wasn't referring to art style, but rather the post-processing and digital coloring of anime.


Code Geas Episode #5


Oshi no Ko Episode #2

More recent anime have a greater degree of post-processing placed into them compared to early 2000s anime, where the industry was still learning how to use digital processing. This is a big part of why NARUTO can vary on how it looks between episodes. Tsuru Toshiyuki's episodes and Openings always stick out throughout NARUTO and NARUTO Shippuuden because his style was to be hands-on and experimental with the digital processing/filtering/whathaveyou. It wasn't until BORUTO that the franchise began to have a heavier and more consistent use of post-processing across the series.

Similarly, Pokemon very intentionally tried to slowly easy over from cels to digital through the original series' last year or so (2002). The digital coloring was done in such a way to try to mimic the look of the cel episodes as much as they could manage at the time. This kept up in Advance Generation and early Diamond & Pearl before the franchise fully switched to 16:9 and the series used more vibrant colors. This again saw a major change when it came time to do XY in 2013 and the look of the series was revamped yet again.

The evolution of digitally colored and finished anime is similar in a lot of ways to the evolution of early color cel anime and later color cel anime. GeGeGe no Kitarou (1971) doesn't look the same as GeGeGe no Kitarou (1996), after all. The way things were colored, filmed and finished changes a lot during that twenty-five year period of time. We've seen a similar shift with with digital anime, albeit I think slower because of how production schedules have become even more rushed thanks to how quickly a bland digital look can be accomplished compared to the nature of cels forcing productions to be more patient and wait before beginning broadcast.

[Zephyr]

It's just something you get a feel for with exposure. Mainly centered around the shape and design of the eyes.

...

All 2005-2010 examples. It's not necessarily a dramatic change or something that's different in a way that's better or worse, but it's enough that almost anyone who's seen a sizable amount of anime from the 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s could easily say whether a screenshot from a show they've never seen before is from the 2000s or not (with some exceptions for stylized series that don't adhere to the style of the time as much, Code Geass being an example - not to mention a high-budget show with production values more common in 10s anime, so it looks more contemporary than most 2006 shows). It's not an extremely striking difference, but the brain is designed to distinguish thousands of faces and voices so minor differences can be easy to discern. Again it's something you pick up easily with a significant amount of exposure, it's not something you're likely to see with a handful of screenshots. Dragon Ball fans can easily distinguish SSJs despite them being extremely similar to each other, and distinguishing 00s from 10s and 20s is likewise extremely easy and automatic if you've watched enough examples of both.

Yeah that's definitely a shape and design for eyes that I saw a lot of in the 00's, and I've no doubt that it peaked during that decade. Or at least I would say that, but you treating Code Geass like an exception to this trend in eyes makes me think I'm not quite seeing what you're talking about.

For instance, some 00's anime I watched that I would think fall into the pattern you describe would include Azumanga Daioh, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Baccano!, and Bakemonogatari:

Spoiler:

Meanwhile, there were plenty I watched from that decade that don't seem to be in-line with that pattern, like Paranoia Agent, Kemonozume, Monster, Darker Than Black, and Claymore:

Spoiler:

To be fair, you did acknowledge that there are exceptions to what you're talking about. But I wonder how many exceptions there are, and how easy it is for someone to be exposed to a sizable amount of them. Because if Code Geass is excluded from the specific trend in eye-design you're talking about, then I wonder how many of these that I've posted (thinking they are part of it) are also excluded. And if they're not excluded, there are many other older anime that I feel also have similar eyes. Which makes it seem to me, so far at least, that this trend is either a very specific eye-design and is thus probably not as deserving a poster child of 00's anime eye design as we might think, or it's much more broad and isn't even particular to that decade.

---

That being said, Azumanga Daioh and Monster certainly look like they're from the same era, while Bakemonogatari does not; it just has this additional glow to it, to describe it rather poorly. Is that a result of the sort of post-processing stuff you're talking about, Julie?

If so, then would I be on the right track in saying that the absence of film grain in the move to digital production caused a loss of "texture" to the images in anime, resulting in a sort of "flatness", that these sorts of post-processing techniques then compensate for in a different way, offering a different sort of "texture", and thus a new particular visual style (apart from any specific pattern of linework)?

Because in that sense I can sorta see how Dragon Ball Super (2015) might feel more like a 00's anime, and thus feel dated in that regard. Even then, though, I'd hardly be able to stick it in the same box as the the film-grain DB shows. All it does is show to me the limitations of the Two Box System. We need at least a Middle Ages, a Medieval Period for the anime, situated between Antiquity and Modernity, which the flat 00's stuff that was post-grain but pre-processing can comfortably fall into.

[Dr. Casey]

Yeah, I don't have the knowledge of art to handle this conversation, I think. The eyes are an easy focal point for the most common and stereotyped 00s style, but it's not the only distinguishing element by any means. I just brought up the eyes because it's a simple and easily observable thing to point out, whereas the overall style of the 2000s vs 10s/20s is a complicated subject and I don't fully understand how or why my brain is able to tease out the difference. A lot of it does come down to exposure and experience; I haven't seen any of the anime in that second spoiler box except for Monster and I easily and automatically recognized them all as coming from the 2000s without any kind of doubt or hesitation. The decade that something belongs to is easy to get an intuitive feel for with experience and applies to many different styles even if I don't have the vocabulary to properly describe what those distinguishing factors are, and even though someone else would be more fit to go into the details, some kind of distinction must exist if I could guess whether something belongs to the 00s or 10s/20s with near perfect accuracy.

[JulieYBM]

Trigger Warning: Furuya Tooru

Since we're on the subject of post-processing, I'd actually like to link this cut scene from the Gundam UC mobile game. The porcessing was done to try to mimic the look of the 1988 film Char's Counterattack, despite being a digitally colored and processed piece from 2023. It's honestly amazing looking, with very few tells that show that it's done digitally, rather than on cels and film. It just goes to show how much proper processing can change the look of a piece.

[Vegard Aune]

I wasn't referring to art style, but rather the post-processing and digital coloring of anime.


Code Geas Episode #5


Oshi no Ko Episode #2

Yeah but it's like... Sure. Those two do have aesthetic differences. I think even without knowing that Code Geass came out while I was in middle school and that Oshi no Ko came out, what, two years ago? I probably would have been able to place Oshi no Ko as the newer one of the two.

But the difference between these two is far more subtle than the difference between Code Geass and, say, Neon Genesis Evangelion. In the same way that, as was alluded to earlier, the difference in graphical quality between an NES game and a SNES game is infinitely more obvious than the difference between a PS4 and PS5 game. Or heck, even a PS3 and a PS5 game for that matter. The heavier emphasis on compositing in anime in the past decade or so was nowhere near as big a paradigm shift as going from cel to digital or SD to HD.