Unpopular DB opinions

[MasenkoHA]

Fun Fact, in the Ocean dub that Robot Oji-san episode is merged out of existance. So in a way Ocean dub is the sort of "Plot only/Manga Only!" cut that fans wanted lol.

The problem was the original Funi/Ocean dub wasn’t using the manga as a guide so they would remove important scenes from the manga too. Kami explaining to Mr.Popo that he’s sensing that the new Piccolo isn’t as evil and reiterating his connection to Piccolo for those who missed the previous two arcs is completely removed. Making him die when Piccolo dies just something that happens because reasons.

Although by complete accident that dub gets a more faithful rendition of the start of the Saiyan arc than even Kai by opening up with Raditz landing on earth so there’s that

Wait, wait, WHAT? Really? Wow I was just kidding. I didnt know the manga opened that way! And Chris Psaros apparently didnt either! (He explicitly pointed the alteration was not the intention of the Anime director!)

Well Daisuke Nishio the anime director for Dragon Ball Z and Akira Toriyama are two different people, so Psaros is probably right about that.


But yes chapter 195 opens with Raditz landing on earth and coming across the farmer. The “5 years later since Piccolo was defeated and the earth is at peace “ narration and Goku meeting Chi Chi outside their house and talking about Gohan and going to Kame Sennin wasn’t in the manga. The original English dub just removed the opening entirely and shifted the Goku and Chi Chi scene to after Raditz deflects the bullet back at the farmer and flies off to find Kakarot

Okay then TV show, but I'm still worried about it.

Odds are it will be better than the original tv series arc but worse than Battle of Gods

[Hulk10]

The problem was the original Funi/Ocean dub wasn’t using the manga as a guide so they would remove important scenes from the manga too. Kami explaining to Mr.Popo that he’s sensing that the new Piccolo isn’t as evil and reiterating his connection to Piccolo for those who missed the previous two arcs is completely removed. Making him die when Piccolo dies just something that happens because reasons.

Although by complete accident that dub gets a more faithful rendition of the start of the Saiyan arc than even Kai by opening up with Raditz landing on earth so there’s that

Wait, wait, WHAT? Really? Wow I was just kidding. I didnt know the manga opened that way! And Chris Psaros apparently didnt either! (He explicitly pointed the alteration was not the intention of the Anime director!)

Well Daisuke Nishio the anime director for Dragon Ball Z and Akira Toriyama are two different people, so Psaros is probably right about that.


But yes chapter 195 opens with Raditz landing on earth and coming across the farmer. The “5 years later since Piccolo was defeated and the earth is at peace “ narration and Goku meeting Chi Chi outside their house and talking about Gohan and going to Kame Sennin wasn’t in the manga. The original English dub just removed the opening entirely and shifted the Goku and Chi Chi scene to after Raditz deflects the bullet back at the farmer and flies off to find Kakarot

Okay then TV show, but I'm still worried about it.

Odds are it will be better than the original tv series arc but worse than Battle of Gods

Yeah................... And remove some things about original that were good.........

Although the Kai version of Dragon Ball was in some ways better than the original. But I'm suspicious...............

[Noah]

I find Kikuchi's score in Z to be overly repetitive and often bland compared to OG DB's more lively score.

His score worked better in the movies because many of the tracks were composed specifically for them first. Z's slower pacing and filler is sometimes made to feel worse, due to hearing the same tracks repeated so often. The movies don't have this issue, as they have short run times, faster pacing, and all have distinct tracks composed specifically for them.

Kikuchi's score actually gets better in the Buu arc, with some more lively sounding tracks similar to OG DB. The instrumentals for 'We Gotta Power' and 'We were angels' are good examples.

I kind of agree with that feeling, because even though the movies have some great tracks, I think a lot of them are overused and, like was said before, used without any real criteria, like a track that’s supposedly Piccolo’s theme playing during a fight or dramatic scene where he isn’t even there. But we should always remember that this is more on the editor, the person who picks the music for the episodes, than on the composer.

By the way, speaking of that, are the Saiyan arc and the Buu arc the only arcs in Z that have original anime music?

GT’s ending is definitely emotional for longtime fans, especially because of the final montage...

Considering that I agree with the view that the ending is emotional and that some parts of it don’t really make much sense, let’s talk about something that doesn’t get mentioned much: the montage of iconic moments at the end of the episode. It starts perfectly in chronological order and then, out of nowhere, it jumps from Piccolo Daimao to an image of Android 16. I don’t know if it’s an OCD thing, but that always bothered me. Damn you, Toei!

Daima is a good name. It’s easy to say in almost every language, I think. Still, for some reason I prefer the name Dragon Ball Magic, and I don’t even really know why. I remember not liking the final name back in 2023 because of that, even though it grew on me later.

Speaking of which, right now I’m following a fan-made rewrite of DAIMA with voice collaboration from TFS that fixes and improves a lot of things IMHO... and guess what? That’s literally the name lol

You are the second person to tell me that today. I will be more specific, Robot Oji-san from the iconic DBZ filler episode.

That IIRC, once Nozawa said that was her favorite episode in the show.

[MasenkoHA]

By the way, speaking of that, are the Saiyan arc and the Buu arc the only arcs in Z that have original anime music?

Yes. Since Kikuchi was scoring 2 movies a year from 1990 onwards Toei probably didn’t feel the need to pay him to score music for each new major arc on top of that. I don’t think he even scored that much new stuff for Buu. Just the new title card music and eyecatch music, I think? And the title card was just an instrumental rendition of We Were Angels. I think movies 9-11 made a bulk of the music used in that arc.

[ABED]

Professional writers would say filler isn't a thing. It's a fanmade term. I'm sure that's true and it likely started in anime fan circles. Then it got latched onto every other show as shows became more serialized. Now I fear those that grew up using it are becoming professional writers and think of stories in this way.

I'm hesitant to fully 'blame' anime circles for starting it, because it doesn't seem like they've ever had a monopoly on the term, in reference to art and media. I've seen the phrase "all killer, no filler" in reference to music records, particularly in reviews. The phrase even appears as the name for official releases, with this 1993 rock/country box set being the earliest example I'm seeing at a cursory glance. I have no doubt that some contemporary TV show commentators cribbed it from anime circles. But I think it's also clear that the term existed and was already applicable to commercial art, in areas that I sincerely doubt had any overlap with anime fandom, at least as far back as the early 90's. So there's a chance we'd still be seeing people calling Breaking Bad's fly episode "filler" even if the anime fans didn't do their part to irreparably damage media discourse.

If you wanna say "that's just music, TV shows are different", then fair enough. Color me still unconvinced, though.

Yes, the word has existed in other contexts. I'm talking about storytelling. Something fundamentally different.

Regardless of if it started in anime circles or not, it wasn't a term used for decades in regards to TV because we inherently understood that TV was mostly one offs. I put that at the feet of anime circles because I do think storytelling being a different artform is different. I don't think broader TV fandoms started using the term because they saw it in a bunch of music reviews. I don't think I'm going out on a limb with this because in my experience (I'll grant you that it's anecdotal) TV wasn't talked about in this way except in the specific case of anime adaptations because that's where it was properly applied. Maybe they got it from music, but filler is such a generic word with a very literal meaning that can apply in multiple contexts. However its usage in TV criticism is relatively recent whereas it's been around anime circle for decades. Perhaps anime fans got it from music reviews.

[GurixDr34]

I honestly believe the Dragon Ball franchise will never end i think Super will become an Official Dragon Ball AF Goku and Vegeta will never age they will have new transformations and fight new villains i wouldnt be surprised if Super Saiyan 5 becomes Canon you could say that Goku and Vegeta never age or age slow because of their Saiyan race or maybe because of some effect of the Dragon Balls but the point is i dont think Dragon Ball will ever have a definitive ending like GT did Big franchises rarely have a definitive ending and now that Akira Toriyama is gone i think they will take advantage of this to keep making Dragon Ball forever Goku will be like Spiderman or Batman he will never age

Dragon Ball Super should bring back the idea from the Shadow Dragon Saga from GT where the Earth Dragon Balls become useless due to their misuse and the long standing dependence on them i believe that eliminating the Dragon Balls at least the Earth and Namekian ones and maybe the Super Dragon Balls as well would bring tension and suspense back to the franchise since if a character dies they might not be resurrected

[The Dark Knight]

I honestly believe the Dragon Ball franchise will never end i think Super will become an Official Dragon Ball AF Goku and Vegeta will never age they will have new transformations and fight new villains.

I think Dragon Ball as a franchise will indeed go on for as long as it makes $$$, but I believe the Super part of the franchise will come to an end once they cover everything Toriyama left behind. Following the inevitable conclusion of Super, I think there will be a major gap in which they take time off to plan things out in order to avoid another GT mess.

[GurixDr34]

I honestly believe the Dragon Ball franchise will never end i think Super will become an Official Dragon Ball AF Goku and Vegeta will never age they will have new transformations and fight new villains.

I think Dragon Ball as a franchise will indeed go on for as long as it makes $$$, but I believe the Super part of the franchise will come to an end once they cover everything Toriyama left behind. Following the inevitable conclusion of Super, I think there will be a major gap in which they take time off to plan things out in order to avoid another GT mess.

I read news that they had plans to continue Dragon Ball for the next 30 or 50 years so I'm not surprised if Dragon Ball never ends but i wonder if they will finally dare to put Goku aside and look for another protagonist

[The Dark Knight]

I wonder if they will finally dare to put Goku aside and look for another protagonist.

I think a more practical solution would be to go past the end of Z and have the cast be a mix of old and new. You can have the established fights (Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, etc...) take on mentor roles for the next generation; only getting involved with universal threats like Beerus.

[Kid Buu]

Tangent, but I've seen people claim Toei's Gohan training filler is ruined by him freezing up against Nappa but I disagree. The story may not explicitly address it, but that that's stage fright 101, and besides; the manga already showed us Gohan very comfortable and capable of handling himself in the wild, which was why Piccolo even decided he was ready to train in the first place. But all the training in the world isn't going to prepare you for the moment you're up against a 15 foot tall tank that just punched a guy's arm off and survived a point-blank explosion. And I think Piccolo quickly regaining his faith in Gohan confirms that the bravery was already there, he just got spooked by the real thing.

I agree. Yeah the anime has Gohan beating up dinosaurs but they are seen as weak in comparison to someone like Nappa. Not to mention the instant Yamcha dies it establishes that the stakes are real.

[WittyUsername]

The definition of “filler” in the context of anime that adapt manga always seemed fairly straightforward to me. It’s material that an anime incudes to stall for time so it doesn’t overtake the source material.

[JulieYBM]

I don't think the anime-original Gohan stuff itself is ruined, so much as the episodes adapting the comic basically forgetting about them undermines what could be a boon to those scenes of Gohan facing down Nappa. Give me quick splice cuts of scenes from those episodes cut between Gohan turning the tables on Nappa. Let those pieces make that big moment grow stronger.

[Kid Buu]

Heh, could you imagine an episode during the Saiyaman arc, where Gohan meetings those orphans again?

[JulieYBM]

Heh, could you imagine an episode during the Saiyaman arc, where Gohan meetings those orphans again?

That would be cool, especially if it was kind of bittersweet and not just fluff. Give the 'hero' something to chew on.

[coola]

It's good thing Daima was last DB related thing Toriyama worked on, because otherwise i would find DBS: Beerus to be kinda disrespectful, Battle of Gods was first and last DB he really wanted to do and was fully invested in it, and that's first thing Toei would work on after sensei died?

[Kenji]

Wasn't Toriyama done with Dragon Ball after the original manga?

Obviously, I can't find it anymore, but I do remember seeing a comic he drew with someone (presumably Toei) calling Tori-bot on the phone begging "Please, make another Dragon Ball!" and him replying with a cold, hard "No!"

And he seemed firm on that stance until he saw Evolution and the draft for Battle of Gods.
I mean, I'm glad we got Beerus and Whis, but it felt disrespectful regardless to make new DB content against his wishes to begin with, and him resigning to go back into doing something he didn't want to out of fear of his creation being mishandled even worse.

[JulieYBM]

Toriyama was a big boy. He did not need to approve the creation of new Dragon Ball projects, he did not need to stringently dictate that there only be one type of Dragon Ball and he could have learned how anime is made and worked with the production staff to learn how he could use his influence as the creator to let other peoples' creative visions thrive without corporate market testing getting in the way of other creators' work.

Toriyama this, Toriyama that. Good grief, people, stop infantilizing the millionaire.

[PhantomSaiyan]

i don't think any of this is about infantilizing the man though

I think it's just about respecting an artist's vision and work, like it happens to every well respected artist out there that made stories that deeply affected people's lives, it's just how it works, ppl get attached to that particular art or style because it resonates with them

[BernardoCairo]

Toriyama's involvement with modern Dragon Ball should not be that controversial. It was his intellectual property, and he wanted to do certain things with it. As far as we know, he didn't dictate the series' future alone and, in many cases, only offered suggestions and guidelines at the request of the companies involved.

Dragon Ball existed without him, Dragon Ball will exist without him, but there was also his version of Dragon Ball, which was very good. Even if he wasn't at his peak, after more than 20 years retired from weekly manga, I see no problem with him getting excited about one or two projects and wanting to work directly on them. He was never that protective of his intellectual property and always supported the continuation of projects without him, from the very beginning.

[MasenkoHA]

I also don’t think Toriyama had to get involved again. He seemed more than okay with GT’s existence and contributed some designs and the name as his stamp of approval.

Battle of Gods was going to happen with or without Toriyama and although all but the setting were improved by his input I doubt the original product was ever going to as bad as Evolution.