Which was the better sequel: GT, Super, or Daima ?

[The Dark Knight]

None of them ? All three have aspects that I like, but at the same time, none of them ever reached the height of the original DB and DBZ. Daima is by far the best the series has ever looked, but the actual adventure seemed really limited compared to an arc like the RRA. Even the Pilaf arc felt grander in scope compared to Daima. GT took a lot of risks that I appreciate, such as permanently killing off characters and everything revolving around Ssj4, but it didn't have a single memorable fight, nor were any of the supporting characters allowed to shine. Super is the most ambitious of the three in terms of how it expands the world and lore, but it was always held back by prioritizing style over substance and relying heavily on nostalgia.

After three attempts to continue Toriyama's work, I have come to the conclusion that Dragon Ball will never reach the height of the Pilaf to Buu era. Toriyama, his editors, and the staff at Toei created something truly special with the original series; it was a lightening in the bottle product that I don't believe will ever be recaptured, no matter how hard they try. I just re-watched the entirety of DB and Z in Japanese for the very first time, and there's a feeling of polishness to it that its sequels never managed to replicate; everything just clicked. Dragon Ball's shelf life was clearly the original series, and no matter how many times they try to extend it, things just don't work out they way they hoped.

[Civic]

Super > Daima > GT

[super michael]

None of them ? All three have aspects that I like, but at the same time, none of them ever reached the height of the original DB and DBZ. Daima is by far the best the series has ever looked, but the actual adventure seemed really limited compared to an arc like the RRA. Even the Pilaf arc felt grander in scope compared to Daima. GT took a lot of risks that I appreciate, such as permanently killing off characters and everything revolving around Ssj4, but it didn't have a single memorable fight, nor were any of the supporting characters allowed to shine. Super is the most ambitious of the three in terms of how it expands the world and lore, but it was always held back by prioritizing style over substance and relying heavily on nostalgia.

After three attempts to continue Toriyama's work, I have come to the conclusion that Dragon Ball will never reach the height of the Pilaf to Buu era. Toriyama, his editors, and the staff at Toei created something truly special with the original series; it was a lightening in the bottle product that I don't believe will ever be recaptured, no matter how hard they try. I just re-watched the entirety of DB and Z in Japanese for the very first time, and there's a feeling of polishness to it that its sequels never managed to replicate; everything just clicked. Dragon Ball's shelf life was clearly the original series, and no matter how many times they try to extend it, things just don't work out they way they hoped.

I guess that is a good way to look at it, all 4 of them has their strong points and their weak point, which stops them from being better than Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.

As for me I prefer Daima and GT over DBS any day.

GT >= Daima > DBS Manga >>>>>>> DBS Anime

[The Dark Knight]

As for me I prefer Daima and GT over DBS any day.

GT >= Daima > DBS Manga >>>>>>> DBS Anime

I can agree with this, although I do like and dislike certain aspects of both the anime and manga of DBS, making them essentially equal to me. If I had to put them in order, I would go:

Daima > GT > DBS Manga >= DBS Anime.

I never needed an entire new series of Dragon Ball arcs, as I believe the original 10 arcs we got from Toriyama perfectly covered the journey of our cast of heroes. However, I was always interested in the demon realm, as it was brought up multiple times during the Buu arc and never got addressed/resolved. Daima, despite not being as good as I think it could've been, did a decent job covering that final plot point from the original series, and it did so as a standalone series that didn't require me to watch anything else from the modern era.

[Saiya6Cit]

ok, rating it by overall quality it is Daima>>> GT>>> Super

Rating it with my heart it is GT>>> Daima>>> Super

[Kenji]

Honestly? GT.

GT may have had a lot of problems, but it had "soul" and messages the creatives behind it wanted to send to their audience.
According to the producers, that beautiful ending they made was planned like that from day one, which I appreciate.
Disrespectful as it may be to Toriyama's vision, they felt the original ending was lacking and strived to make their own.
And I'm very glad they did, because honestly? I hate the manga's ending.
I'm not saying it's bad, just my personal preference.

That's not to say Super and Daima don't have their merits or messaging, Beerus is one of my favorite characters ever. xD
But the overall message I get from them is, "Goku is not a bad person, even though he does a lot of selfish and morally questionable things, bordering on Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but he influences people around him to be better by simply being himself." And of course, the good-old "You should always strive to improve yourself."

Which, while not a bad message in and off itself, has already been done to death in the franchise and, if I'm being quite honest, done much better. It also feels like a huge over-correction, because supposedly Toriyama didn't want Goku to be portrayed like a superhero, so the solution he found to the problem was making him a straight-up insensitive jerk.

Adding to all of that is how, most often than not, whatever messaging there is in these shows feels hollow and under-cooked in favor of prioritizing shameless capitalism and toy-selling over artistic integrity. "Hey kids, here's Super Saiyan [X] all over again, but with a different coat of paint. Buy our new merch!"

All of that being said, Super had more interesting ideas than Daima, even though they weren't executed all that well.
Daima just felt boring to me, from beginning to end.

So, IMHO:
GT >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Super > Daima.

[SupremeKai25]

GT may have had a lot of problems, but it had "soul" and messages the creatives behind it wanted to send to their audience.
According to the producers, that beautiful ending they made was planned like that from day one, which I appreciate.
Disrespectful as it may be to Toriyama's vision, they felt the original ending was lacking and strived to make their own.
And I'm very glad they did, because honestly? I hate the manga's ending.
I'm not saying it's bad, just my personal preference.

Can you elaborate on GT's "message"? What's this message?

Being as charitable as I can be towards GT, its "message" seems to me to just be a retread of the original DBZ ending about the next generation of Earth fighters and how the adventure goes on.

I also find it pretty sad... and frankly unbelievable... that Goku's family and Bulma's family drifted apart and cut off all contacts.

This is a world with flying and literal teleportation.

[Kenji]

GT may have had a lot of problems, but it had "soul" and messages the creatives behind it wanted to send to their audience.
According to the producers, that beautiful ending they made was planned like that from day one, which I appreciate.
Disrespectful as it may be to Toriyama's vision, they felt the original ending was lacking and strived to make their own.
And I'm very glad they did, because honestly? I hate the manga's ending.
I'm not saying it's bad, just my personal preference.

Can you elaborate on GT's "message"? What's this message?

Being as charitable as I can be towards GT, its "message" seems to me to just be a retread of the original DBZ ending about the next generation of Earth fighters and how the adventure goes on.

I also find it pretty sad... and frankly unbelievable... that Goku's family and Bulma's family drifted apart and cut off all contacts.

This is a world with flying and literal teleportation.

"Your actions have consequences, even those made in good nature."
"You should be more considerate of what your friends and loved ones are feeling."
"Your hobbies are important, but spending time with your loved ones is just as much."
"Seeking revenge against innocents only makes you become the monster you sworn to destroy."
"If you want your wishes to come true, you should rely on your own hard work and not magic."

I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
As for the families drifting apart thing, that's just life.
My family is friendly with other families from the same neighborhood, but I recognize that's just my parents' friends.
I have no interest in shoehorning myself into their lives and they don't seem to have any interest in doing the same for me.
Someday, I plan to move away, which will inevitably cause our families to not be so close anymore.
And sure, I could still contact them via email or video-calls, but we're not that close and I don't feel like it.
It's sad, but it's life.

[Kenji]

I have also forgotten to mention that the entire message behind GT's ending is learning to cope with loss.
The families drifting apart is just another aspect of that.

"Nothing lasts forever, things change. But hold your head high and keep living life."

It's something Toriyama admittedly would never in a million years write, but that doesn't make it automatically bad.
Though I do see how not everybody would be comfortable with such a heavy, sensitive topic being touched upon in a franchise they mostly view as an inoffensive escapist fantasy. That said, I do appreciate the bravery of GT's writers in bringing it up, especially considering this was Dragon Ball's definitive end at the time as both manga and anime had ceased production.

[SupremeKai25]

"Your actions have consequences, even those made in good nature."
"You should be more considerate of what your friends and loved ones are feeling."
"Your hobbies are important, but spending time with your loved ones is just as much."
"Seeking revenge against innocents only makes you become the monster you sworn to destroy."
"If you want your wishes to come true, you should rely on your own hard work and not magic."

I appreciate your elaboration, but I would argue that these messages are not unique to GT.

Actions have consequences -> Goku staying dead at the end of the Cell saga is similar messaging, yes? He realized he kept attracting evil-doers to the Earth and it was best if he passed the baton to someone who's not a battle-crazed warrior like him.

Another huge example is Trunks' time traveling. Goku Black and Zamasu as a threat exist BECAUSE OF TRUNKS' TIME TRAVEL. Even though he time traveled with good intentions, he caused time to shatter and thus inadvertently created alternate versions of Zamasu who teamed up to punish Trunks for his time travel, which is a sin and a taboo, even for the gods.

Second and third points are kind of the same thing and both Z and Super touch on these themes. Vegeta has so many scenes where he spends time with his family, Super literally starts with Vegeta going on a vacation trip with his family. Vegeta also refused to participate in the Zeni Exhibition Match because he wanted to be with his wife when she gave birth. Goku apologized to Gohan in the Moro saga for forcing him to fight.

The fifth point is also something that is present in many story arcs... for example, Vegeta's whole speech to Black was about hard work being of paramount importance and Black being a fraud because he didn't put any hard work and used magic to steal Goku's body.

Your fourth point is the most interesting

"Seeking revenge against innocents only makes you become the monster you sworn to destroy."

Do you have any particular moment from GT in mind? I presume this is about Baby Vegeta? Because if that's so then it's pretty similar to Granolah and, to a lesser extent, Jiren. (he did try to kill all the innocent bystanders at the Tournament, which was a villainous thing to do)

Also, I would argue this point doesn't really apply to Baby because he was constructed as a revenge-driven machine. He doesn't really have free will. He was never at any point of his story anything but an evil, twisted villain who wanted to conquer the universe and slaughter the Saiyans along the way.

As for the families drifting apart thing, that's just life.
My family is friendly with other families from the same neighborhood, but I recognize that's just my parents' friends.
I have no interest in shoehorning myself into their lives and they don't seem to have any interest in doing the same for me.
Someday, I plan to move away, which will inevitably cause our families to not be so close anymore.
And sure, I could still contact them via email or video-calls, but we're not that close and I don't feel like it.
It's sad, but it's life.

As I said, it's a world with teleportation. People can literally teleport. And if that's not available, then people can fly at superhuman speeds.

"Nothing lasts forever, things change. But hold your head high and keep living life."

It's worth mentioning that Super is technically not finished yet. The storyline is currently on hiatus and it will be interesting to see if Toyotaro and Toei will make an ending like this for the Super section of the world.

The ending of the Super Hero arc in the manga certainly gives me this feeling, especially as it contained a homage to Toriyama.

[Grimlock]

As for the families drifting apart thing, that's just life.
My family is friendly with other families from the same neighborhood, but I recognize that's just my parents' friends.
I have no interest in shoehorning myself into their lives and they don't seem to have any interest in doing the same for me.
Someday, I plan to move away, which will inevitably cause our families to not be so close anymore.
And sure, I could still contact them via email or video-calls, but we're not that close and I don't feel like it.
It's sad, but it's life.

As I said, it's a world with teleportation. People can literally teleport. And if that's not available, then people can fly at superhuman speeds.

I sincerely trust you realize what you say does not debunk what they are saying. The ability of flying does not negate people drifting apart. It is utterly irrelevant that those people can fly, it does not matter in the slightest.

Other than that space trip, Pan was never that much close to Vegeta's family as far as we can tell on-screen, she did not grew up playing with Bra and even that one trip with Trunks does not mean that she would keep in touch forever with Vegeta's family (unless you are one of those weirdos that imagine a Trunks and Pan relationship being a possible thing).

It not only is believable, but completely expectable that they would drift apart at some point. But you're just twenty-four years old, according to your profile, so in time, you'll see how much this is more common than you think.

[PhantomSaiyan]

It not only is believable, but completely expectable that they would drift apart at some point. But you're just twenty-four years old, according to your profile, so in time, you'll see how much this is more common than you think.

As for the families drifting apart thing, that's just life.

I hate the argument "but it's realistic that families drift apart, that's life"

Where has Dragon Ball EVER been a "I guess that's life" kind of show exactly? It's literally a goofy light hearted fairy tale world where everything always ends up in the best possible outcome, and everyone lives happily ever after.

That's just never been the tone of Dragon Ball, I'm sorry. I've expressed multiple times how anthitetical to the DB spirit GT's ending was, so I'm not going to reiterate it again, but good god, "that's life" is NOT it when it comes to discussing this franchise, this ain't Bojack Horseman.

Dragon Ball has always, by admission of Toriyama and Torishima, been written as escapist light hearted media first and foremost.

[SupremeKai25]

As for the families drifting apart thing, that's just life.
My family is friendly with other families from the same neighborhood, but I recognize that's just my parents' friends.
I have no interest in shoehorning myself into their lives and they don't seem to have any interest in doing the same for me.
Someday, I plan to move away, which will inevitably cause our families to not be so close anymore.
And sure, I could still contact them via email or video-calls, but we're not that close and I don't feel like it.
It's sad, but it's life.

As I said, it's a world with teleportation. People can literally teleport. And if that's not available, then people can fly at superhuman speeds.

I sincerely trust you realize what you say does not debunk what they are saying. The ability of flying does not negate people drifting apart. It is utterly irrelevant that those people can fly, it does not matter in the slightest.

Other than that space trip, Pan was never that much close to Vegeta's family as far as we can tell on-screen, she did not grew up playing with Bra and even that one trip with Trunks does not mean that she would keep in touch forever with Vegeta's family (unless you are one of those weirdos that imagine a Trunks and Pan relationship being a possible thing).

It not only is believable, but completely expectable that they would drift apart at some point. But you're just twenty-four years old, according to your profile, so in time, you'll see how much this is more common than you think.

Thank you for your thoughts on this point. I may be young, but I know very well what it means to "drift apart" from friends. I have completely drifted apart from all of my former school friends because they all left my homecity for one reason or another.

I would probably still be in touch with them if I could teleport or fly though.

What do you think about my other arguments?

[Kenji]

I feel like whenever someone argues against the point of "Goku abandoned his family" with "No, he didn't. He can fly and teleport whenever he wants," it's incredibly dismissive to the point people usually intend to make: That he's intentionally causing emotional grief to his loved ones out of a selfish desire.

This is shown in both the manga and the anime.
Goku has not seen his friends and family for half a decade (before Super rewrote things), something Bulma calls him out on, and then the story ends with this happening again on-screen, with the anime extending this to include shots of Pan and Chichi being driven to tears. He decides his loved ones are not important and goes to live out his selfish desires.

This... puts a bitter taste in my mouth. Hence why I said "I hate the manga's ending."
While I don't necessarily believe fictional characters must be perfect, or that an ending needs a sense of finality, I also believe that we should not be normalizing behaviors like this as quirky and charming when in reality, they're incredibly hurtful, but that's just my two cents on this topic.

About everything else, how "these messages are not exclusive to GT," the actions have consequences message has never been as prominent as it had been in GT, and I feel like everything else you mentioned that happened in Super is exactly the thing I was referring to in my original post, "While these messages are not bad, they have already been done before and, IMHO, done much better."

[SupremeKai25]

This... puts a bitter taste in my mouth. Hence why I said "I hate the manga's ending."
While I don't necessarily believe fictional characters must be perfect, or that an ending needs a sense of finality, I also believe that we should not be normalizing behaviors like this as quirky and charming when in reality, they're incredibly hurtful, but that's just my two cents on this topic.

Shouldn't this argument also apply to the ending of GT, where these two once close and friendly families drifted apart?

Can you explain why "that's life" makes the ending of GT better, but not the ending of Z?

Yeah... it sucks that Goku left his entire family to pursue his hobby. Unfortunately, that's all too common in real life when people become so obsessed by something that they ignore everything else. That's life.

[JulieYBM]

I hate the argument "but it's realistic that families drift apart, that's life"

Where has Dragon Ball EVER been a "I guess that's life" kind of show exactly? It's literally a goofy light hearted fairy tale world where everything always ends up in the best possible outcome, and everyone lives happily ever after.

That's just never been the tone of Dragon Ball, I'm sorry. I've expressed multiple times how anthitetical to the DB spirit GT's ending was, so I'm not going to reiterate it again, but good god, "that's life" is NOT it when it comes to discussing this franchise, this ain't Bojack Horseman

Dragon Ball GT has been a part of what Dragon Ball is for thirty years now. Having a small little box for what Dragon Ball is or can be is silly in general, but thirty years after it did a melancholic ending is a hill that makes no sense to die on.

[Kenji]

This... puts a bitter taste in my mouth. Hence why I said "I hate the manga's ending."
While I don't necessarily believe fictional characters must be perfect, or that an ending needs a sense of finality, I also believe that we should not be normalizing behaviors like this as quirky and charming when in reality, they're incredibly hurtful, but that's just my two cents on this topic.

Shouldn't this argument also apply to the ending of GT, where these two once close and friendly families drifted apart?

Can you explain why "that's life" makes the ending of GT better, but not the ending of Z?

Yeah... it sucks that Goku left his entire family to pursue his hobby. Unfortunately, that's all too common in real life when people become so obsessed by something that they ignore everything else. That's life.

He's extra-dead in GT, it's all but stated he had no choice in the matter but to leave with Shen Long to make up for his mistakes and resurrect everybody, something Vegeta, Piccolo and Muten Roshi all realize. In Z, he was alive and had full and total control of his actions, and left out of selfishness. That's quite the difference there.

Also, you repeating "That's life" makes me feel like you're not interested in debating in good faith and just trying to get a reaction.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Dragon Ball GT has been a part of what Dragon Ball is for thirty years now. Having a small little box for what Dragon Ball is or can be is silly in general, but thirty years after it did a melancholic ending is a hill that makes no sense to die on.

So we're not allowed to have preferences on how we like this franchise to be? I should just accept everything blindly?

GT tried something different and imo it failed, what do you want me to say? Pretend that it's great because it was brave enough to stray from what I love about Dragon Ball? Hell no.

[Grimlock]

Where has Dragon Ball EVER been a "I guess that's life" kind of show exactly?

Ever since the characters were allowed to age, grow up, having their own families and stuff from life like that. So essentially, since the very beginning.

It's literally a goofy light hearted fairy tale world where everything always ends up in the best possible outcome, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Which only makes the Bardock and Trunks TV Specials, well, all the more special and masterpieces. They are "more grounded" in reality. Not every story should have a happy ending, and they highlight themselves for being that in a generally light-hearted story.

What do you think about my other arguments?

I don't know, I have nothing to say. It was just that specific part that caught my attention and I had something to say.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Ever since the characters were allowed to age, grow up, having their own families and stuff from life like that. So essentially, since the very beginning.

Characters ageing does not automatically turn a show that is goofy lighthearted in tone into Bojack Horseman, this argument doesn't work.
Dragon Ball, when written by Toriyama, stayed a lighthearted story despite the characters growing up and having families, so it's not like those two things automatically turn an escapist fantasy story into "I guess that's life"

Which only makes the Bardock and Trunks TV Specials, well, all the more special and masterpieces. They are "more grounded" in reality. Not every story should have a happy ending, and they highlight themselves for being that in a generally light-hearted story.

That's different.
Stand alone self contained specials on other characters are one thing, ending the entire franchise (because that's what GT was supposed to be, the official ending of the franchise until BoG came along) with that tone clashes hard with everything that came before.
You can't compare the two.

"not every story should have a good ending" true. But if there's ever been a story that should have a happy lighthearted ending, that's fucking Dragon Ball.